


Age of Miracles

by ThisChairIsMyHomeNow



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Age of Ultron Rewrite, Angst, Background Slash, Bucky isn't technically in this but Steve's longing for him is basically a character, Canon-Typical Violence, FUCK YOU JOSS, Family Feels, Fix-It, Friendship, Gen, Human Experimentation, Hurt/Comfort, In which the Avengers rescue the Maximoff twins who are kiiiiiiiinda hostile at first, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Steve Rogers, Recovery, Spoiler Alert: Pietro Lives!, Team as Family, Tony and Wanda actually have a confrontation, Wanda-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 11:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10098065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisChairIsMyHomeNow/pseuds/ThisChairIsMyHomeNow
Summary: Wanda thought of their cause, of when she was smaller.A shelling at the kitchen table. Starkbombs and a long wait. Her father used to call her “sweet girl.”But she wasn’t a sweet girl anymore.She was a witch now.And when she was strong enough, she was going to kill Tony Stark.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It has been 84 years and I am still SALTIER THAN THE DEAD SEA about the mischaracterizing CLUSTERFUCK that was Avengers: Age of Ultron. My original concept for a fix-it was literally just “Everything that happened in AoU was a drug-induced terrordream of Tony’s, FIN.” 
> 
> Because let’s be real: how else can we explain it? How else can we explain Steven Grant Rogers, Brooklyn street rat and WWII veteran, exclaiming “Language!” in a scolding tone? How else can we explain Natasha Romanoff calling herself an infertile monster in order to make her would-be boyfriend feel better for Hulksmashing Johannesburg to smithereens? And how else can we explain Bruce not contradicting her? And most importantly, how can we ignore all of Tony’s character development in Iron Man 3 only for him to casually create Earth-destroying AI? That would be his worst fear for himself, amirite? So, yeah: Tony had a bad day and ate approximately 50 grams of wet shrooms and hallucinated that he DROPPED an EASTERN EUROPEAN CITY from the SKY whilst a weirdo flesh-android named Vision calmly said things like “Humans are odd. But there is grace in their failings,” in the soothing voice of Jarvis.
> 
> That was my first idea. 
> 
> My second idea was this fic, which kiiiiiinda leaves the plot points that affect subsequent films, yet completely reimagines them. It could also be titled Age of Ultron: Now with 98% Less Ultron! It was shockingly easy to remove Ultron and still have a story. Don’t get me wrong, James Spader was a Supreme Lolz-Mongerer, but ultimately I had to (sort of) give Ultron the axe. Why? He’s a low-stakes villain, that’s why. His motivation is 2-dimensional. Are the Avengers going to beat the COOL ROBOT and SAVE THE WORLD??!?! Of course they are, duh, zzzzzz. 
> 
> There is a nuanced conflict embedded in AoU that Joss Whedon largely ignored: Wanda and Pietro Maximoff have a more convincing reason to hate Tony Stark than Ultron did. The twins make captivating antagonists, because they aren’t really bad, right? But they’re capable of Not Good Things because they don’t know any better (due to Strucker, who is truly evil). 
> 
> So what happens when the line between victim and villain is blurred? The friction between the Maximoffs and the Avengers is the conflict I found waaaaay more interesting and in the actual film when Wanda goes from “IMMA DESTROY TONY STARK IT IS MY LIFE’S WORK” to “JUST KIDDING” without even having a conversation let alone a confrontation with Tony I was just like ?????????????? this is not how humans work ?????????? But apparently they couldn’t waste time developing a mere FEMALE PERSON over a COOL ROBOT. Priorities! 
> 
> To be clear: I actually thought AoU had some fantastic/hilarious/gripping moments. I think that’s ultimately where so much of the fan frustration about this film comes from. Oh, what could have been. It was like seeing a bunch of really great puzzle pieces being fit together in the wrong way. Of course, it’s up to each individual fan what the “right” way is. This is just my version (or VISION *drum hits* *finger guns*). I really just needed to explain away AoU to myself so I could continue savoring the rest of the MCU in all its glory. Please enjoy. Pairs best with a large glass of cabernet sauvignon and the inability to fully trust Joss Whedon ever again.

   
  
  
  
  


**PART ONE**

* * *

 

  
  


_“It’s not a world of spies anymore, not even a world of heroes. This is the age of miracles.” - Baron Wolfgang von Strucker_

 

 

Steve should’ve worn the stealth suit, Sam thought — and with good reason: he and Steve were about to infiltrate a Hydra base in the middle-of-nowhere, Latvia and those red stripes were looking awfully conspicuous in contrast with the snow. “Anyone ever tell you you’re basically a walking target?” Sam asked.

“Yeah,” Steve said absently. He was peering through a pair of Stark-built binoculars, focused on the base. “Buck used to say that.”

They didn’t know for sure if Barnes was still on the run; they’d searched everything from major cities to national parks to homeless shelters. Steve had started to worry that Barnes might’ve been picked back up by what remained of Hydra. Steve worried about a lot of things.

“You really think he might be in there?” Sam asked.

“No,” Steve finally answered, like he’d just made up his mind. He lowered his binoculars. “Probably not. I’m not picking up any heat signatures. Would you...double check?”

“On it.”

Sam stood back and his wings unfurled, and  _ man _ , he still felt a little rush of excitement when he got to fly.  It was early morning: overcast and grey and  _ freezing _ too, so Sam was quick about it. He soared up over the base, which looked like nothing more than an abandoned warehouse, and scanned for signs of life with his infrared tech. There was nothing to find. So: about as productive as the rest of their Barnes-related expeditions.

“Nobody home,” Sam shivered out when he was back by Steve’s side in the trees. He tried to warm his hands up by cupping them in front of his face and blowing some warm breath into them. Now all he wanted was hot coffee. Or possibly to go back to sleep.

“Maybe they left some intel,” Steve said.

“Maybe,” Sam offered.

How Steve managed to still be an optimist after  _ everything _ never ceased to amaze Sam. They’d been searching for Barnes for months on end and he still acted like every location they hit might be the one that held the missing clue.  No, scratch that: Steve wasn’t an optimist. He was just the most  _ stubborn human being on the planet _ .

They moved swiftly away from the treeline and out into the open, closing the distance with guns drawn, just in case. Steve stayed few paces ahead as usual. He always made sure he’d be first in the line of fire; and when he busted the door down, he silently held a hand up to Sam as if to say  _ “Wait”  _ before disappearing inside. Sam disliked this part, although he begrudgingly allowed it. Sam used to pull the same shit on Riley, and Riley always —

“All clear,” he heard Steve say. It was literally true: the warehouse was bare and uninhabited and empty. Just a giant square inside, all concrete and shitty metal siding.

“Sorry, man,” Sam said, acknowledging the dead end, but still scanning the room for the sake of it. He’d never been in a HYDRA compound before. It certainly seemed different than the ones in the movies he’d watched as a kid. It was the lack of sinister music, for starters.  

Steve paced around the building very slowly. Every now and then he’d stop to stare at a wall, as if words might suddenly appear on it. A hint or something. “It’s a pretty interesting wall, huh?” Sam said when Steve parked in front of one spot for at least five minutes.

“Yeah,” Steve said, except he was serious, and then he sniffed at the air like a bloodhound. Sam sometimes forgot about this aspect of the serum: Steve could’ve had a long, productive career sniffing out drugs at the airport. All his senses and reflexes were enhanced.

“Just tell me it’s not C4,” Sam said.

“It’s not C4.”

Steve inhaled again and looked sick. Then he stepped toward a vent in the floor and pulled off the grate.

There was a button; of course there was a button. Cue the sinister music. Sam wanted to draw his gun again and nothing had even happened yet. Steve pressed the switch and it was like some straight up Harry Potter shit — the hole in the floor maybe tripled in size, revealing the opening to some kind of secret basement. No big deal, just some eerie wooden steps plummeting into a dark abyss/hellpit. Steep with no railings.  

“You don’t have to come with me,” Steve said, for maybe the 100th time, in that same guilty-and-noble tone

“Don’t make me give you the speech again,” Sam warned.

Steve gave him the hint of a half-smile and a grateful nod before flipping on his flashlight. And then one foot in front of the other: down they went. About a third of the way down, Sam caught a whiff of what Steve had been smelling, and suddenly he really didn’t want to see what was probably waiting for them at the bottom of the steps.

The stench wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. What if they’d found this place in summer? But still Sam found himself feeling nauseated and suffocated and he couldn’t imagine how Steve was handling it without hurling. Finally at the end Steve found what he was looking for: a lightswitch.

Sam blinked furiously in the sterile fluorescence before he could take the scene in. And, shit. He’d been right.

There were about ten dead bodies in total. They were teenagers; semi-frozen and blueish, piled up carelessly in a vague heap, except for one who was strapped to what appeared to be a medical examination table. They all seemed to have similar wounds and markings.

It clearly had been a lab. There were empty clipboards and syringes and much to Sam’s dismay and further horror, a cage that seemed the perfect size for a human. There was nothing in it but a single dirty cotton sock.

“Jesus, how long do you think they’ve been down here?” Sam asked.

“Hard to say,” said Steve, “with the temperatures being what they are.”

“Can’t have been too long,” Sam said. There were signs of decay, but this place had to have been  _ recently _ abandoned.  “I mean I’m not a forensic scientist, but it can’t have been too long.”

Steve wasn’t paying attention. He was attempting to remove the restraints from the girl on the table; he was righteously indignant at her captivity. She looked no more than 16 years old. She also looked —

“I think she was pregnant,” Steve said.

“Yeah,” Sam said, numb. Then he leaned over carefully and vomited into a mop bucket. “I don’t wanna overstate,” he wiped his mouth, “but this looks like some kinda Nazi horror shit.”

Steve nodded. Steve would know, wouldn’t he?

“I need some air,” Sam said.

“Go on up,” Steve said. “I’ll be there soon.”

Sam went back up the steps and walked outside into the snow and leaned on the metal siding of the warehouse and wished like hell for a cigarette. He hadn’t smoked since the day before basic training. Cold turkey. He certainly felt like a cold turkey now. His hands were shaking. He was probably in shock.

Steve hadn’t seemed shocked, like perhaps it wasn’t the first time he’d stumbled upon evidence that Hydra was experimenting on humans. Of course it wasn’t the first time. Steve’s world was crazy.

There was a very loud BANG from down below, then a cracking sound; Steve reemerged a few minutes later holding a thin stack of files. “These were in a safe behind the wall,” he said. He leaned against the siding with Sam and rifled through the papers.

Sam looked down at it without really looking. Sam was too distracted. His mind was racing. “Should we bury them? Maybe we should bury them.”

The victims deserved that much. Neither Sam or Steve had a shovel. But if they had to do it by hand, so be it. Sam wanted to wrap them all in blankets first.

“We can’t,” Steve said. “These are...missing persons cases.”

“Shit, you’re right.  _ Jesus. _ Their parents…” Sam wanted to throw up again. “All right, local authorities then?” Sam asked.

“Not sure how else we’d be able to ID them…”

“Then what?” Sam asked. His shoulders slumped. “I guess we’re not going to Lithuania next.”

Steve crossed his arms and chewed his bottom lip a little. Angry and thoughtful: his usual expression. Steve in a nutshell. Before setting out, they had made a plan: a very long list. It included just about every country in Eastern Europe, and the whole of Russia too, and if they still hadn’t found Barnes after all that, Sam figured Steve would grow fins and gills and search the entirely of the Black Sea next. Steve was  _ relentless _ about Barnes. Sam could see how much the idea of a detour tore up his insides. But finally Steve huffed a sigh, resolute, and held up the files. “I need Nat for this,” he said. “This is in some kinda code. She could crack it.”

Steve had asked her to come with them, at one point, several months ago. (Partially because she was fluent in about every language imaginable and the best tracker they knew, but mostly because the world just felt right when the three of them were together.) Natasha had declined for personal reasons. Why she was holed up near the  Velikaya River  was a mystery, just like everything else about her. Steve hadn’t pushed it, but they’d kept in touch, at least enough to know where she was in Pskov.

“We find Nat,” Steve continued, “and then we figure out what the hell is going on. Hydra doesn’t deal in isolated events. They’re methodical. If this is happening here...”

“It’s probably happening somewhere else,” Sam finished. He realized his fists were clenched.

  
  


+++

  
  


Natasha removed the gag from the operative’s mouth and studied him coldly, hardly blinking. It was difficult to believe in the image in front of her.  

The man had aged poorly since she’d last seen him. His skin was now leathery and sallow, his eyes milky instead of sharp and clear as she remembered them being when he used to watch her dance or shoot. He appeared frail, bird-boned and creaky. But she knew better. He was still a fighter underneath it all, cunning and undoubtedly lethal. Which is why she had him tied very securely to a chair.

She pulled up a chair of her own; the sound of it was like nails on a chalkboard. Flimsy wood scraping against the hard floor of the abandoned house she’d dragged him to at the far edge of the city. Secluded. No witnesses. She’d staked out this spot a long time ago. She’d had dreams of this.

“There are a dozen ways I would normally play this,” Natasha said, “but seeing as you’re the one who helped teach me my tricks, I’m not going to waste time with games.”

“You always were the smartest of the bunch,” the operative said fondly.

Natasha leaned forward, forearms on her knees, still not bothering to break eye contact. “Before we get started, let’s make one thing clear: you’re guilty of crimes against humanity. Nobody will miss you when you’re gone. Your time is up...unless I take pity on you.”

“You weren’t programmed for pity,” the operative said. “It’s not in your nature to have compassion, is it? A missing protocol.”

“You know nothing about me,” Natasha said cooly.

“Oh, dear one, I think the truth is  _ you _ know nothing about you. Isn’t that why you’ve come to me?”

“What happened to Madame B?” Natasha asked. Her first question was the least important. A warm up. Madame B had been her mentor, more or less her mother; a cold, cruel, nitpicking woman. But Natasha had still loved her and wondered.

“What happened to Madame B?” Natasha asked again.

The operative gave no answer; he wanted to see what would happen. Natasha lunged forward and punched him quick and hard on the mouth. His bottom lip split wide open. Blood started to drip down his chin.

“Now — what happened to Madame B?”

“Terminated many years ago,” he finally said, annoyed. “She was plotting to defect to America.”

“Did she suffer?”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t my order. It was probably quick.”

Natasha nodded, satisfied. This was the answer she had expected.

“You should be thankful,” he continued. “She would’ve ratted you out too. She knew things that nobody else knew.”

That was true, in a way: Madame B had known Natasha’s favorite color as a child. She had known the words to the songs the girls would sing before bedtime. She had known what it was like to braid Natasha’s hair, to wipe dirt off Natasha’s cheeks with a cloth. Madame B had known all of Natasha’s tiny secrets: how she’d cried a little the day she started her period, thinking she was dying. How she  _ hadn’t  _ cried the day of her first kill.

“Is anyone else from my cohort still alive?” Natasha asked.

The operative dabbed the blood on his lip with his tongue. “Unlikely. You all were conditioned to self-destruct if you lost contact with us.”

“Oh, I’m well aware.”

“Clearly some of the girls took the message more to heart than others.”

Natasha sat forward in her seat again, her normally sly demeanor exchanged for something akin to anger. “Were we taken from our parents or were we given up?”

“Why would it matter?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Acquisition of materials wasn’t under my jurisdiction.”

She backhanded him. He laughed until it turned into a wet cough. There was no reason for him not to cooperate; he knew he was doomed. He was merely having fun at this point, dragging out their interaction. Perhaps he was lonely. Perhaps he was enjoying having someone with whom to talk. But she didn’t want him to enjoy this.

She took a pair of pliers out of her bag. “I’ll start pulling teeth next. Assuming you’re not wearing dentures. If that’s the case, then I’ll just have to pluck out your eyes.”

The smile dropped off his face.

“Some of girls were kidnapped. Some of them were left with us, for Mother Russia, all that,” he said. And then, with sneer, “If I had to guess, your parents probably gave you up as soon as they realized what you were. They probably sensed you’d be a killer before you learned to walk.”

She plunged the sharp pliers into his thigh. They were left standing there in his flesh, mere inches from his femoral artery. He growled in pain.

“You wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for us,” he said. “People were starving to death. Whole towns went without heat. What does it matter if we took you or if they gave you to us? Either way it saved you. Have you been imagining your alternative life as some sort of fairytale? Really, Natalia. I’m disappointed in you. This is foolishness.”

She pulled out her Glock.

“Which would you have rather been, Natalia? A dead prole, or a useful weapon? Those were your only options. Don’t delude yourself.”

She pressed the barrel to his forehead. “Was. I. Taken?”

“You were a gift to your country.”

_ “Answer me.” _

Neither of them breathed for several moments. Then, finally, he sighed genuinely and said: “I would tell you if I knew. I don’t remember how you came to us. There were so many of you girls over the years.”

She stepped back a few feet and lowered her firearm, defeated. He wasn’t lying. She could tell he wasn’t lying. All the work it took to find him and still no answers. This had all been in vain. Unless —

“One last question,” she said, reeling for any other purpose this interaction could serve. Her mission was a failure, but she could at least help someone else. “The Winter Soldier. Do you have any idea where he is?” 

His eyes narrowed. “Why would I?”

“He was with us, sometimes. And you know people who know people who know people.”

“That poor creature wasn’t meant to survive without a handler. I imagine he’s put a bullet in his own scrambled brains by now.”

She was surprised by how much anger boiled inside her at that, mostly for Steve’s sake. It was alarming how wrathful she suddenly felt; all she wanted to do was pull the trigger.

“Oh, you want to kill me now, don’t you. Go ahead. You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t.”

She smiled at him, dangerous and serpentine. She flashed her teeth. “It’s oddly poetic, isn’t it? Me being the one to finish you off?”

“Oh yes, it’s beautiful. A fitting end. But I won’t say goodbye, dear one. You’ll join me in hell someday. We’ll be together forever. You’ll never — ”

She fired two shots into his gut instead of his head. She wanted it to be agonizing: anything but clean. His last gasp was a loud one and Natasha felt nothing at the sound.

She hopped on her motorcycle and sped off, wind whipping at her ears as she drove. She didn’t look back. She’d spent countless hours plotting and arranging the interaction, but she never considered what would come after. She didn’t know what to expect going forward. She certainly didn’t expected to see Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson collapsed in front of her motel room door, dressed in civvies and looking like they hadn’t slept in three days.

“The hell are you boys doing here?” she said, hand on her cocked hip. She’d missed them both so much.

 

It took her a few hours to crack the code while the boys showered and cat-napped; they  _ had _ been awake for about three days. She could understand why after reading the content of the lab technician’s logs and studying a few photographs: this particular project of Hydra was nightmarish. It made the Red Room look more gentle in comparison. 

“It refers to the test subjects as  _ volunteers _ ,” she said. “Their ages are listed from anywhere from fourteen to twenty one, twenty two. If I were guessing, I’d say these were at-risk youth, runaways, orphans maybe. Mix economic hardship with national pride and a need to belong somewhere...and you’ve got a textbook candidate for terrorist recruitment. Not sure how else they could convince them to be experimented on like this. It’s a little crazy.”

“Well,” Steve said, scrubbing a hand over his stubbled face, “When you put it  _ that _ way…”

Oh.

“You were different,” she said, meaning it. But she wondered about him too, if he had understood all that he had been signing up for when he’d agreed to his higher-up’s offer. Steve was  _ good _ , and good was often taken advantage of. She knew this firsthand from her own training. A good man was the most dedicated accomplice, if you could convince him that what he was doing was also good.

“It mentions ‘cognitive reinforcements’ being used. Hydra has always been into brainwashing. I assume once the kids were in the program the conditioning made it impossible to leave...”

“What was the goal of the experiments?” Steve questioned.

“They seemed interested in producing certain traits. Increased metabolism and improved thermal homeostasis. Neural-electric interfacing, telekinesis.”

She paused, unsure if Steve understood those words. Were she in a lighter mood, she’d tease him about it.

“I’m 96, not stupid,” he finally said, all sass.

“Summarize it for me then,” Sam piped up, “because it’s too early for this shit. Or late. Whatever. I’m delirious. Where’s the coffee?”

“Mind-reading and superhuman speed as weapons,” Steve said.

Sam rubbed at his eyes, trying to keep them open. “ _ Great _ . They have any success?”

“Not according to these documents,” Natasha said. “But they reference other ongoing experiments at multiple facilities.”

Sam looked to Steve: “Like you said. Never an isolated event.”

“Cut off one head…” Steve sighed.

_ Two more shall take its place. _ It was a particularly gruesome tagline, recent information considered.

“Any clues as to  _ where _ these other facilities are?” Sam asked. “Because it would be kinda cool to, oh I don’t know...take Hydra out once and for all?”

“Working on it,” Natasha said. And she better work fast, she thought. There might be lives depending on it.

  
  


+++

  
  


Every other color had bled out of the Earth except for the blue glow. 

Scepter mesmerize, scepter terrorize: t hat was the procedure, hold still. She knew the drill, hold still.  She was strapped down, eyes closed, jaw tight, toes curled. Her mind dilated like an eyeball and she could see all the way to the end of time. She could see everything backwards and forwards now: time and space and words.  _ In words, alas, drown I. I nword sala sdrow ni.  _ Words and sounds had colors and colors had numbers and the numbers added up to infinity.

“Your mind is expanding,” the man said, soft and syrupy in her ear.

 

B A R  O N  V   O  N   S    T   R    U    C    K      E         R 

 

There were many ways to spell his name: 

Backs Turn Overr On 

Turn Back Nervoros 

Baron von Strucker 

Sometimes she became confused and called him Papa and he would smile and touch her face and she would freeze and Pietro would scowl. But sometimes Pietro would be confused too and call him Papa and Strucker would clap him on the shoulder, son.

They were desperate as dogs when he found them. They begged for the bones he gave: scraps of comfort and the promise of justice from his table. A kind master, thank you.

“It  _ hurts _ ,” Wanda-named gritted out. That was her name.

 

W   A   N   D    A    M   A     X     I     M      O      F      F 

 

Madman Waif Fox. She was angry-red inside, not blue.  Pain lived all over her body, even in tiny places. It was stuffed under her fingernails. It was dabbed behind her earlobes, white hot.  

“Remember why you’re here, Darling,” Strucker said. “Remember how you got here. It will give you strength.”

She and Other Half had been living in the capital of Sokovia, eating old chicken from a dumpster-place. They had said no to the dirty needle and they hadn’t sold their bodies for rich men’s quick pleasure like the others did at night.

They volunteered their bodies for their country instead.

Word on the street, years ago, when they were eating from a garbage can. Word on the street was you could change the world if you knew where to sign up. They’d pump magic in your veins. You’d be wise and powerful instead of alone and afraid. You would be a hero and they’d teach you many things.

She thought of their cause, of when she was smaller.

_ A shelling at the kitchen table. Starkbombs and a long wait. Her father used to call her “sweet girl.” _

But she wasn’t a sweet girl anymore.

She was a witch now.

“Can you move the blocks?” he asked.

She answered by doing it. This was an old trick.

“Good, good,” Strucker said. “If only your brother would progress as quickly.”

Pietro had no powers. Yet, anyway. He usually learned things veryveryfast. But he kept getting stuck.

“Pietro is trying,” Wanda explained.

“Sometimes I doubt that. Now: Can you move the rabbit to the other side of the room?” Strucker asked. This one was new.

She tried. She tried. She tried. She was imprecise and there was a _ thunk. _ The white rabbit hit-smacked the wall and stopped moving. Its soul went to Wonderland with a pocketwatch. Curiouser and curiouser.

“Done for the day,” Herr Strucker said.

 

 

+

 

All the other test subjects in the castle were eaten by the blue light and it was just a small group of them now, the few. We few.  _ Wef ew.  _ They were locked in a cell together, no light at all, not even blue. What special powers would emerge in the days and days and days of darkness? Won’t I panic in a pit now?  _ Won tip a ni cinap I t’now? _

She could hear through the walls of the cell like they were paper thin and not made of steel, because she was a Wanda-witch. The men at the computers were making happy sounds. They were opening a bottle of champagne, POP. C   h  a m p a gne. Change Map. Cap Hang Em. Even Strucker was happy. He was very, very pleased and she could feel it through the wall. Jealousy panged in her rib bones all the way up to her throat. She wanted to make him proud someday. He told her she wasn’t strong enough yet. She wanted to look inside his mind, but she didn’t, couldn’t. She had promised she wouldn’t peek, ever. Because she would be nothing without him. He was family.

  
  


+

  
  


In the days and days and days of darkness, Wanda heard many secrets through the wall. The secrets sounded quiet-soft at first but then got loud as gongs. Loud like the screams of the others, crying out for food, shush please. Wanda wasn’t hungry for anything but revenge. 

The cradle held the weapon and the weapon wasn’t ready. The weapon was a Korean patchwork quilt of stolen goods dropped off by a Klaue-hand, thanks Wakanda. The cradle held the weapon and the weapon held the program and it was A Better Human. A master race with computer brains to make the bad ones pay.

“Wanda,” Pietro said. His voice was a dry-sand dusty cough. “We’re going to die in here.”

“Herr Strucker wouldn’t let us die. This will only make us stronger.”

“I don’t feel strong. I just feel thirsty. We need more  _ water. _ ”

Wanda smelled incense and remembered the words of the robed man and said: “Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God. On either side of the river was the tree of life, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”

“What are you  _ talking _ about?” Pietro said.

“But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

He gripped her shoulders in the not-light and shook. “You’re scaring me. You’re…” _ Crazy? _

“My mind is expanding,” she said. Pietro hadn’t spent as much time with the blue glow and didn’t understand. He thought about things fast instead of u n f o l  d  e   d. He only saw things one way, not 12. This is why he still had no powers.

“What do you mean your mind is expanding? Is...the plan working? ...Can you hear people’s thoughts?”

“The cradle holds the weapon. I heard that from one of the soldiers who stands close to the wall. I can hear him if I focus.”

“Can you tell  _ them _ things? Can you make them give us water?”

The weapon wasn’t ready and the Wanda wasn’t either. Her head hurt when she tried to tell them: water. You can read a foreign language easier than speak it.

“Could you open the door to this place?” he asked. “With your mind?”

“No.”

“You  _ can’t _ or you  _ won’t? _ ”

“I don’t know.”

Strucker had warned them about Traitors. T r a i t o r.   R  a  t    R i  o  t . The weak ones fell away and only the strong remained. Pietro must push through. Pietro didn’t believe like she did and that’s why he had not Mutated. It had become A Problem.

Wanda said, “This was all your idea, remember?”

She could feel his horror at her words: in his mind there was a finger pointed at him and it was his own, angry and shaking. _What was I thinking? This was a mistake._ _It’s all my fault._

“This part is only temporary,” Wanda assured. “Pain releases power.” P a i n  re l e a s es p o w er. W e a p o n l e s s   p a ir   e r e. W e a r i n es s   r op e  l e a p.

He pulled her into a desperate hug. Clingy. Drowning in the fear-waters, yet not a drop to drink. He was thinking of their mother instead of her.

“That’s right,” Wanda said. She rubbed a circle on his back, round and round. “Think of why we’re here. We can make it right.”

She could sense his many Traitor-thoughts going back to sleep for now, goodnight.

She thought of their cause, of when she was smaller.

_ A shelling at the kitchen table. Starkbombs and a long wait. Her father used to call her “sweet girl.” _

But she wasn’t a sweet girl anymore.

She was a witch now.

And when she was strong enough, she was going to kill Tony Stark.

  
  


+++

  
  


Tony took another  ~~ gulp ~~ sip of whiskey from his tumbler and looked out at the sunset-tinted NYC skyline. He and Rhodey were  ~~ bored ~~ on the helipad with a bottle of  Glenfiddich, both missing Pepper. Tony missed her because she was  ~~ slipping away from him slowly ~~ the love of his life. Rhodey missed her because she kept Tony in line better than he could. She was gone on business trips a lot lately. She was supposed to get home later tonight, but then she’d called and said she had another week in Tokyo. 

“This is so romantic,” Tony said, because he was an asshole. Rhodey rolled his  ~~ pretty brown ~~ eyes and replied, “You just  _ had _ to make it weird.”

“Making you uncomfortable is one of my greatest joys in life,” Tony said.

“Yeah, I noticed. You just told me you’re spending 600 million dollars on a new project and you won’t tell me what that project  _ is _ . That definitely makes me uncomfortable.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Tony  ~~ lied ~~ said. “Nothing catastrophic. I promise. I’m a changed man.”

“So just tell me what it is then,” said Rhodey. “Knowing will help me sleep better at night.”

“Sorry, no can do. Back to drinking games.”  Tony drained the last of his tumbler. He’d felt mildly drunk earlier, but now he just felt  ~~ existential ~~ warm in a distracted sort of way. “Would you rather watch two old people have sex every day or join in once to stop it.”

“The hell is wrong with you?” Rhodey said.

“That’s another question  _ entirely _ .”

“Ugh, how old are we talking, here?”

“Mid-80s. A spry 90, perhaps,” Tony invented.  

“Pass,” Rhodes said.

“Nope, that’s not how this game works. Gotta pick.”

“I hate you,” Rhodey said, and he screwed up his face and agonized over it for while. He’d had more to drink than Tony. “Fine. I pick watching the old people do it. Because if they’re that old, I won’t have to watch them for very long since they’ll die.”

“Very logical.”

“Okay, okay, I got another one,” Rhodey said, waving his glass a little. “Would you rather: have a missing finger or an extra toe?”

Tony ran a hand over his goatee and briefly considered shaving off the  ~~ stupid ~~ thing.  It had been a really long day. Like Eugene O'Neill long.  “I’d just make myself a new finger. I know this scientist in South Korea who can 3D print tissue — ”

“That the one who got robbed recently? Banner’s friend?”

“Helen Cho, that’s her.”

“We should invite Banner up here.”

Cap was still overseas  ~~ honeymooning ~~ with Wilson; Romanoff was a ghost; Barton and Thor were helping SHIELD (or what was left of it) search for Loki’s scepter. So Bruce was the only other person in the tower.

“I can’t get Bruce to talk to me,” Tony said  ~~ dejectedly ~~ . “He’s gone full-on emo kid. There’s a sign on his door that says “KEEP OUT.”

“Is there really?”

“No.”

But there might as well have been.  Bruce hadn’t talked to anyone since the South African incident a month ago. He’d barely left his room. If Tony didn’t know better, he’d have thought Bruce had curled up in his bed and died. Tony didn’t like thinking about it. He was losing  ~~ one of his best friends ~~ a valuable team member. Their quiet rift made Tony do strange things, like leave baked goods at Bruce’s door or call Romanoff up to ask if she’d pretend to be in love with Bruce to ensure he stayed with the team instead of running off. She’d  ~~told Tony to go fuck himself~~ declined the gig. She was busy.

“Speaking of Banner,” Rhodey said. “And this isn’t coming from me, I’ve just been hearing things since Johannesburg — ”

“Nobody died. The Veronica suit  _ worked. _ I paid all the medical bills and I’m rebuilding the city.”

“This isn’t about physical damages, Tony. It’s about  _ image. _ It’s about public trust. You’re on thin ice here.”

“He’s not dangerous,” Tony said.

“I know he’s your friend, but that’s a ridiculous thing to say.”

“Okay, so he’s a 1,000 pound wrecking ball with an unpredictable hair trigger. Your point?”

“My point is...the DoD has its eye on you. That’s all I’m saying. I’m just saying: be careful.”

“Oh,  _ now  _ they’re watching me? They get lackadaisical when Obadiah was  _ lying to me  _ about who we sold to, but now that I’m actually trying to do some good in the world, they’re watching me? Are they listening to this conversation right now? Are you wearing a wire?” Tony said, leaning over and into Rhodey’s general chest area, “Hellooo Teddy Ross!”

“I’m not wearing a wire, you asshole. If anything, I’m  _ your  _ spy. Why do you think I’m telling you this? Ride or die, man. I’d just prefer not to die.”

“I’m touched,” Tony said, clutching at his heart.  ~~ It really did mean a lot. ~~

“Touched in the head, maybe,” Rhodey razzed. “In light of recent events, do you really think it’s the best idea keeping Bruce in this tower in the middle of the  _ most densely populated city in the country _ ?”

~~ Tony was the smartest man on Earth how THE HELL did he not realize how incredibly stupid it was to keep Bruce in the most densely populated city in the country no wonder Bruce didn’t want to come out of his room  ~~ “He might could use some space.”

“It’s just something to consider.”

“There’s an old Stark Industries warehouse outside Breakneck Ridge,” Tony mused. “Pepper  _ does _ love a difficult remodeling project…We could fix up the whole thing, brand new HQ.”

“You really think Pepper would wanna move upstate?”

~~That was actually what she wanted years ago after Killian nearly murdered her and Extremis rendered her infertile. They were going to adopt a baby and they were going to do The Thing: leave the city and settle down and Tony thought he’d make a terrible father but Pepper disagreed and then this distance crept in and~~

“Maybe,” Tony said. “Even if she and I don’t move,  _ the team _ needs to move.”

Rhodey’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re really stepping down?”

“Sure. Steve’s taking over as soon as he gets back.”

Steve was always better suited for the job, right? He was  the chosen one, ~~dad’s chosen son~~ Captain America, after all. A patriotic  ~~virgin ~~ gentleman with a pure soul and a clean mouth who could probably get a polygraph machine to confess its own sins.

“I’ll just pay for everything, design everything, and make everyone look cooler,” Tony finished.

“Is  _ that  _ what the 600 million dollars is for? Costumes?”

“Give it a rest, Rhodes”

“Tony,” Rhodes said, far more quietly and seriously than Tony liked, “You don’t have to tell me what it is. But could you at least tell me if you’re doing okay or not? ‘Cause you really don’t seem okay lately.”

Tony raked a hand through his hair. It was dark out by now, although only technically. The city lights were as busy as ever. He really wanted to crack a joke right about now but he was drawing a blank.

“I call it  Binarily Augmented Retro Framing,” Tony finally admitted with the wave of a hand, trying to sound flippant. “I wear these glasses, go into old memories. That type of thing. Projections of the hippocampus. I’ve just got a few things to sort out. You know. In my ooey gooey emotion places. Boo hoo. Hashtag Orphan Problems.”

Rhodes didn’t say anything but looked  ~~ sad ~~ supportive.

“At least that’s the plan,” Tony said. “It’s mostly an idea — still working out a few bugs. I’ll get there.”

(This was a lie. There were no bugs. Tony had seen the image of his parents today, in shockingly vivid holographic detail.)

  
  


+++

  
  


_ We’ll have to separate the twins _ , Strucker wrote on a notepad,  _ to test the mental connection. I’ll explain it to them in a way they’ll like and understand. Take the male to the facility in Hungary. I want to determine if the female can still hear his thoughts at a sizeable distance. The male has yet to display any powers. But his mind-link with the girl could still be of some use to us.  _

_ The other subjects are proving non-mutative. They can be used for your transplant experiments if desired. Otherwise please dispose of all but two or three of them using standard procedure. NO EXCEPTIONS. Any further negligence will be severely punished. The spares I will retain for exercises with the female twin. _

  
  


_ + _

  
  


_ The female twin is unable to establish mental connection with the male at this distance. It has become distraught. Please send word to the lab in Hungary that we are ready for the male to be returned. I have increased its conditioning in the meantime. On a more promising note, it was able to lift a test subject and perform thorough telekinesis. And after coaxing it into the right mindset, it was able to terminate said subject. It would not be able to accomplish this readily in a combat situation. However I foresee this skill progressing with further exercises. _

  
  


+

  
  


“WHY HAS THERE BEEN NO WORD FROM THE HUNGARIAN FACILITY?”

  
  


+++

  
  


“Anyone ever tell you you’re a walking target in that suit?” Natasha asked.

“SEE,” Sam said a little too loudly. They were a few yards away from a Hydra base that was definitely not vacant.

“Well, I think  _ yelling _ will give us away faster than a little red,” Steve whispered angrily.

“Grandpa’s grumpy today,” Natasha said to Sam as an aside.

“Didn’t get my cuppa coffee this morning,” Steve countered. He wasn’t actually tired; he didn’t need as much sleep as the average person ever since they shot all that blue shit into his veins. But Natasha had woken them at the ass-crack of dawn this morning with a sentence: “This part isn’t code, it’s  _ coordinates. _ ”

At her words, Steve had immediately hauled himself outta bed and walked a whopping three steps to the tiny bathroom of their motel room to splash some cold water on his face. The colder, the better. He had taken a freezing shower next. He had needed to get rid of his little morning time problem.

No, not  _ that _ .

It was much more embarrassing, and pervasive, and he’d never told a soul, ‘cept for Sam: ever since the ice, when he woke up in the morning, for at least an hour or two, he didn’t feel  _ real _ . Or maybe it was that nothing  _ around him _ felt real. He was in a goddamn dream: there were aliens, he was 6’2, Buck had been taken prisoner by Hydra again and had a metal arm. So the dream was mostly a nightmare, except for a few good parts: He’d spent the past week holed up with a flying soldier from the future and a red-haired Russian spy. They both genuinely seemed to like having him around too, which was maybe the strangest part. All in all it was like something outta those pulpy science fiction paperbacks Buck used to hide his nose in.

After the freezing shower, Steve had toweled himself off and stepped into yesterday’s clothes and moved on to the second step in his secret routine: He had rifled through his backpack and taken out Buck’s file and looked at the picture real quick. The world was blur of newness and uncertainty, but there was Buck in his Army uniform lookin’ like a goddamn movie star, same as always. The sight rooted him. Usually after that step he’d try to sketch whatever the hell was around or on his mind: The pastel sunrise seeping through the drapes, or Natasha’s oddly bent dancer’s feet (he’d been a showgirl after all, he knew the signs), or maybe Brooklyn landmarks. Once it was a pile of bodies in a lab. He wasn’t sure if the lab was in Latvia or Austria. He had thrown that sketch out first chance he got.

But there hadn’t been time to draw this morning, of course.

“Sam, you fly Nat up over that electric fence and drop her someplace soft,” Steve instructed.

“What about you?” Sam asked.

“I can jump it. Rendezvous at the south entrance. Don’t engage unless you’re left no choice —once we’ve determined the status of the victims and gotten them out, we can round up the soldiers and see if they’ll surrender. And if they don’t...we’ll figure something out.”

He wasn’t real proud of it, but he wanted to kill them. He’d settle for turning ‘em in to authorities. Either way, he wanted to end this. He’d run this mission before and he was sick and tired of reliving it.

It unfolded similarly to the first time he’d taken a Hydra base, initially: They snuck in easily. And sure enough, there was a single young soldier laid out in the lab. He was the only one who made it, it seemed. But this was where it got different: he wasn’t strapped down to a table. He was in a cage. He also screamed like a delirious maniac when they entered the room.

“ENEMY COMBATANTS IN THE BUILDING!  GUARDS! GUARDS! ”

“Quiet, kid,” Steve commanded. “We’re here to help you.”

Steve ripped the door off the cage. They could hear boots down the hallway, moving quickly.

“GET AWAY FROM ME. I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE—”

Natasha shot the kid with a tranq dart. He looked furious and terrified as he crumpled to the floor. Steve caught him before his head hit anything hard, scooping him up like an oversized rag doll.

“You gotta fly him outta here, Sam —we’ll hold ‘em off ,” Steve said, looking around for a window. There was a small one. It would have to do.

“The safehouse outside Budapest — ,” Natasha said urgently. They had discussed this scenario. “ — Take him there and  _ keep him tied up. _ We don’t know what he’s capable of _. _ I know you like seeing the good in people, _ but please assume he will try to kill you.  _ We’ll take the jet to you when we’re done here. _ ” _

“Got it,” Sam said. He took her dart gun, holstered it, and threw open that window. Steve handed the young man over.

“See you soon,” Nat said.

“You  _ better _ ,” Sam threatened as he scrambled out. “None of that dying shit, alright?”

“Oh, please,” Natasha said cooly. She pulled out twin Berettas. “This’ll be a piece of cake.”

As Sam sped off, Natasha and Steve locked eyes. The battle-ready blaze in her expression almost knocked the wind outta him; he’d never seen her show as much emotion. He knew it was going to be just as hard for her as it was for him to merely incapacitate these soldiers instead of  _ annihilate _ them.

But Hydra’s soldiers didn’t show up or burst into the room at all.

Steve realized with sickening dread that the sound of the boots was now moving  _ away _ . He grabbed Nat before she even knew what was happening and unceremoniously shoved her into an industrial sized steel fridge with God knows what in it. There wasn’t enough room inside for him and he knew she’d protest; his heart swelled at the notion. He blocked the fridge door with his crouched body and covered as much of himself with his shield as he could, because this Hydra raid was going to end just like the first, after all: with fire. He thought of Brooklyn and Bucky with all his might, like Dorothy clicking her heels and wishing for home, hoping the dream would end. He thought of the first time Buck had ever thrown a punch for him, when Steve had just been a pale kid with two left feet and lungs as sturdy as a paper bag. The fact that people loved him always came as a shock, still did: he’d never been able to entirely understand Bucky’s unwavering allegiance to him, nor could he fully fathom Peggy’s affections, or Sam and Natasha’s fierce friendship now. He felt inordinately wealthy in that moment, just as the whole building exploded. He might as well have been Rockefeller. He was going to die a rich man indeed.

  
  
  
  
  
  
****

**PART TWO**

* * *

 

  
  


**To:** elizabethaross@culveruniversity.edu

**From:** bbanner@starkindustries.com

 

_ Betty,  _

_ I’ve got some nerve contacting you after all this time, don’t I? At least that’s what I imagine you’ll think when this pops up in your inbox. I’m not certain if me reaching out is a symptom of bravery or cowardice at this point, but I just wanted to explain myself because I’m sure by now you’ve seen what happened on the news and I know you worry. _

_ The reports are telling the truth. I got set off by traffic. Just traffic. They drive on the other side of the road in South Africa. In other words, I’m a grown man who couldn’t handle a sharp turn in a cab ride and a city paid the price. It’s one thing to have some collateral when the world’s fate is on the line, but Stark and I were there for a conference of all things. He was just bored so we went. _

_ After years of honing my mind, I thought I finally had the other guy under control. Maybe that’s the problem. It had been so long since a spontaneous incident like that, I’d let my guard down. I’d stopped doing my breathing exercises, my hypnosis, all of it. I was feeling pretty normal just before it all happened too. Like I was just a guy visiting a place. Then I had an entire police force firing at my head. I spook people, then people spook me, and it just goes in circles until there’s rubble in the streets. _

_ Technically I’m on sabbatical now. It was “suggested” by the US government that I take one. They thanked me for my service and then very nicely threatened to lock me up. The unspoken gist of it is that if I screw up one more time, I’m out of the game for good. After all this I don’t trust myself much either. I’ve got my old heart rate monitor out like old times. I want to tell myself that everything is going to be fine, but more importantly I want you to tell me everything is going to be fine. I’d believe it coming from you. _

_ Just so you know, every time I open my eyes in the morning I think back to that day in the lab. What I wouldn’t give to make a different choice. Your father didn’t exactly give me all the information about the project upfront but I guess you figured that out by now. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I wanted to be somebody special or at least do something special. Be careful what you wish for, right? _

_ I still feel like he’s breathing down my neck and I haven’t seen him in what, 6 years? I haven’t seen you in 6 years either. I can’t remember what your laugh sounds like anymore. All the shit that’s happened to me and that’s maybe the worst thing. I don’t want to sound like some mopey teenager and I don’t mean to throw a pity party it’s just that I’m feeling pretty desperate these days and I’m not sure where to turn. I aware that I’m lucky just to be alive at all after the procedure. I understand that. I really do. Hopefully I’ll get to a place where I can truly accept not having a regular life. Trouble is I have no clue how to begin. How does anyone get over their very cells being tampered with? That’s not a rhetorical question. I need an answer. I could really use an answer to that question. _

_ Love, _

_ Bruce _

  
  


+++

  
  


Sam had expected the safehouse to resemble a bonafide _ house,  _ seeing as the word house was in the title and all, but this place was just a bare cabin, all wood, with a sketchy bathroom and a closet full of sleeping bags and ammo and spaghettios. The whole place smelled like a pine tree and looked like a mini-crack den. Not that Sam had actually ever set foot in a crack den. But he’d seen one on  _ CSI _ . 

The kid was thoroughly tied up in the corner with his head slumped over, chin digging into his chest. He wasn’t really a  _ kid,  _ kid. He looked early 20s maybe, but it was hard to tell for sure because of how underfed he was. Honestly, he looked like a heroin addict, what with all those track marks on his skin and the general disorientation.

Natasha had said to treat him as hostile, and given his bug-eyed screaming back in that lab, he could see her point. There was really no telling what mood this dude was going to be in —hurting people often  _ hurt _ people, as the old adage goes, and this guy had the possible added bonus of superpowers. Still, Sam disliked treating the victim of unfathomable atrocities like a prisoner. He debated untying the kid all together, setting a precedent for when the sedative wore off: you’re free here, you’re fine.

Because Sam knew what it was like to wake up in cold terror, arms tied, unsure of your surroundings.

He hadn’t been held long. It hadn’t been as violent or messy as it was in the movies—in  _ his  _ case, anyway—just intimidation tactics and some questions, the threat of death lingering in the air. His unit had found him and busted him out in record time. It was the sort of story that usually turned into a CNN headline, except his didn’t, because his program technically didn’t exist. A lot of things happened in Afghanistan that didn’t end up on the news.

He was going to untie the kid.

He was definitely not going to untie the kid.

He double checked the knots and double checked his watch. He had hoped Steve and Natasha would be here before the sedative wore off. Just in case.

It had been too long, each passing second he grew more and more worried about their whereabouts. He wanted to go back and find them, but he couldn’t run the risk of the kid taking off, because what would’ve been the point of the whole mission then? He tried Natasha’s radio again and set about pacing the room, and affectionately cursed the day he’d met Steve Rogers.

Steve was a really frustrating dude to care about, seeing as he managed to find a way to sacrifice his life or break the law about every three days.  It always felt like you were maybe five minutes away from him jumping in front of a bullet for you.  Steve was going to give Sam an ulcer.

And Romanoff was going to give him a heart attack, probably, either from how aggressively gorgeous she was or from the way she could just suddenly appear places without a sound and scare the bejesus out of him.

Case in point: A bit later,  the door of the cabin flew open and Sam jumped about four feet in the air — he hadn’t heard her jet land, or any footsteps. She stood there quietly covered in soot. Bizarrely, the first thing Sam noticed was that a large chunk of her hair was missing.

Then, with a lurch: “Where’s Steve?”

As an answer to his question, she walked into the room dragging Steve with all her might on a plastic tarp behind her. He was wearing nothing but his tech briefs and some kind of brace on his left leg. And he was  _ covered _ in burns.

“Comin’ in hot,” Steve said dryly, looking up at Sam from the floor, quite pleased that he’d just made an Air Force joke ™ .

“ His uniform was melting into his skin so I had to cut it off,” Natasha explained. “Femur is broken too, but I set it.”

“Well, I don’t mean to get sentimental,” Sam said with relief, “but I’m really glad you two are still alive and shit. I was starting to worry this kid was going to wake up and vaporize me with laser vision or something.”

“We need to move him downstairs,” Natasha said urgently, looking at the slumped figure in the corner.

“Um.  _ What? _ ” Sam questioned.

She walked to the closet confidently—this was  _ her  _ safehouse, after all—and shifted something on the floor. There was a latch; of course there was a latch. She pulled it up and a thick patch of flooring came up with it.

“Oh, hell no. Nope. Nuh-uh. I have had enough with creepy secret basements.”

“It’s designed for containment. We don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“I don’t want to put him in a cell,” said Sam sadly.

“I don’t either,” Steve said.

“I don’t want him to slide out of those ropes and slit my throat while I’m trying to sleep,” Natasha said.

“But we don’t know that he’s really dangerous,” Steve argued. “He’s confused, he’s been _ brainwashed _ —”

“Young soldiers are the most dangerous, trust me,” Natasha said, and that shut them both up, and Sam knew he had his work cut out for him: Nat was going to be harder on the kid because she saw her old self in him, and Steve was going to be too soft because he saw nothing but Barnes. Sam had to be the middle ground.

“I can talk to him,” Sam said. “It’s kind of what I do, remember?”

“It’s kind of what I do, too,” Nat countered.

“Okay, you do know that therapy and interrogation are two different things, right?”

“It’s cute that you think that.”

“They’re  _ different _ .”

“Fine, they’re different. We have the same goals, is all I’m saying. We need him to  _ trust us _ so he’ll talk. We’re close to something big. And he’s our only lead at the moment. I wasn’t able to extract any intel in the fire.”

“I’ll handle the kid,” Sam said firmly to Natasha, slight edge in his voice. “We’ll play this zone defense. You just worry about getting Steve back on his geriatric feet, okay?”

Steve rolled his eyes.

Natasha pinched her mouth off to one side thoughtfully. “I’ll let you be the one to handle him  _ if _ you stay armed and  _ if  _ you keep him downstairs.”

“Deal,” Sam sighed. So much for avoiding secret basements. There were too many secret basements in this world.

  
  


+++

  
  


“We can use this to our advantage,” Strucker said. “Call in all available troops. Triple our forces. If the male lived, he’ll lead The Avengers back to us for the sake of the girl. When they arrive, we’ll be ready for them.” 

“And the girl?”

“I’ll put her in isolation for the time being. Keep your soldiers an appropriate distance from the chamber—I don’t want her privy to our plans. She already knows too much about the Weapon.”

  
  


+++

  
  


Sam predicted that the guy would start screaming again when he woke; what he did instead was possibly more unnerving. He just sat there on the concrete floor of the basement, jaw clenching over and over. He looked like he was about to sprout fangs and bite Sam from five feet away. He looked like he was about to explode.

“Where am I?” he snarled. His words were lilted in an accent. Ukrainian, maybe?

“Hey man,” Sam said gently, “You’re in a safehouse just outside of Budapest. I’m Sam. What’s your—”

“Why am I here?”

“We wanted you to be safe,” said Sam. “They were hurting you in that lab.”

The kid squared his shoulders a little and let his chin jut out. As if to say: I’m fine, fuck you.

Sam sat down on the floor of the basement with him, still maintaining a safe distance. If only his psych professors could see him now. This was what they liked to call “Meeting the client where they are.”

“I know it probably doesn’t  _ feel _ like it right now, but we just rescued you. From Hydra,” Sam explained.

“Hydra will rebuild Sokovia.”

“By keeping you in a cage?”

The kid was quiet for a second. Processing. “Pain releases power.” He said it without inflection: a mantra.

“Who taught you that?” Sam asked carefully.

“I’m not going to tell you  _ anything _ ,” the kid sneered.

Well, it was worth a shot.

“That’s okay, man. You don’t have to tell me anything right now. How about we just sit. Do you need something? You look like you might be hungry.”

“Not hungry.”

“Okay,” Sam said. He hopped up and grabbed the water bottle he’d brought down. “You’ve got to drink something at least.” The kid’s arms were still bound up. This was awkward.

“Can I come near you and let you have this? I’m just going to walk over and let you drink some of this, okay? Not going to hurt you. It’s just water. That’s it — ”

Sam tipped the bottle to his chapped lips. The kid took a sip and then with a look of pure disdain and defiance, proceeded to spit it all over Sam.

Well then.

“I’m going to untie you now, okay?” Sam said, wiping the water/spit off his face. “But here’s the deal: If you get violent with me, I will have no choice but to sedate you again. We clear? I really don’t want to have to do that, but that’s how it’s going to work when I’m down here with you. Understand?”

It took all of maybe 30 seconds of the ropes being off for the kid to lunge at Sam and get a dart in the neck.

  
  


+++

  
  


Wanda heard the words fall out of Herr Strucker’s mouth and they didn’t expand, just got smaller and smaller until they were a dot, a bullet, a slingshot stone that ripped through her half-heart: pietroisdead

 

pietroisdead

 

pietroisdead

 

“We’ll make them pay for this, Darling,” Herr Strucker said. “You can make it right when the time comes.”

“I will tear them apart,” she said in a desperate voice. She could not get enough air in her lungs. All of the objects in the lab floated up a foot in the air and paused there for a moment, glowing angry red and waiting for orders.

“You will be the Avengers’ undoing,” he said.

He held her for moment and put his hand on the back of her head and went pat-pat. She was a good pup. When her tears fell, all the floating objects in the room exploded with shatter-glass sounds.

Then it was back in the pit, alone alone, gathering strength. This would make her ready.

  
  


+++

  
  


Sam was going to run out of tranq darts at this rate, and he still hadn’t even gotten a name. But he told himself all the sleep wasn’t a waste —the guy clearly needed it.  He kept squinting in the light too, like some kind of vampire. He’d been held in deprivation conditions. It was honestly a wonder the guy could even speak. 

“Let’s start over, okay? I’m Sam, what’s your —”

“I know who you are. You’re one of  _ them.  _ The Avengers.”

“Uh, Steve Rogers is one of my best friends,” Sam said, and wow, that was still such a weird sentence, “but I’m not technically an Avenger.”

“The Avengers are killers. They work for a killer.”

“You sound really angry at them,” Sam said calmly, resisting the urge to argue on behalf of the Avengers’ honor. Reflective listening.

“Tony Stark is a murder,” he spat.

Tony Stark was a privileged, over-entitled son-of-a-bitch, but a murderer not so much. “What makes you say that?”

“He destroyed Sokovia with his bombs.”

“I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding,” Sam said, and it was wrong thing to say.  He lunged at Sam and Sam had no choice but to dart him again.

Back upstairs,  Natasha thought for a moment and then snapped her fingers, like she’d solved a riddle. “ [ Operation Allied Forces ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia) .”

“What about it?” Sam asked, putting down his can of almost-expired Chef Boyardee ravioli, because it was gross.

“The US military was just starting to use GPS and satellites on a large scale. They wanted smart weapons to reduce civilian casualties. Tony sold them the Ultron program. It was an AI-guided missile system his father  _ allegedly _ stole from Hank Pym. Tony tweaked it and made  _ bank _ . It was a precursor to the drone technology we have today.”

“And you know this…how?”

“I shadowed Stark a while back. I know  _ too much _ about Stark.”

“Okay, so he sold them a program. But NATO didn’t bomb Sokovia during Operation Allied Forces.”

“No, but the the Yugoslav Army did. And I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that Milošević’s troops were using that tech for the exact  _ opposite _ of reducing civilian casualties.”

“Stark was double dealing?”

“His mentor Obadiah was, under the table. That all came out back in ‘08.”

“Jesus, no wonder Stark’s such a mess.”

  
  


+++

  
  


Steve limped outside when the sun was nothing but a faint pink smudge at the hem of the sky. 

He was tempted to throw his whole body into the fresh snow, not because the burns needed it (they’d already healed by now, mostly), but because he wanted to feel  _ real _ and a shock to the system usually did the trick. He itched to go for a run—a blistering, lung-busting sprint—but he knew Nat would disapprove given his lingering injury. Instead he scooped up a snowball into his large, unfamiliar hands and pressed the freezing mass into his face.

He kept his eyes closed for a moment, just listening to the early birds.

He missed city sounds: car-horn honks, different accents mingling, shipyard clangs and bangs. These woods were far too quiet, and so was the cabin, except for when Pietro started hollering. That was the kid’s name: Pietro. It took Sam over a week to get it out of him. This was what they knew, now: His name was Pietro and he hated Tony Stark.

Steve could see it: Stark lounging poolside, ogling women and drinkin’ a martini, while this kid’s life turned into a shrapnel-covered hell.

But that image was false, of course. It wasn’t Tony’s call, and Steve too knew the particular devastation that came from finding out your name had been stamped on something you didn’t approve of...

 

He used to go running D.C. a lot. More often than not he’d bump into a homeless man, usually a veteran. Steve had all this back pay sitting in his bankin’ account, so he’d give them money or at least take them to a greasy spoon for a hot meal. It was a ritual: Run 15 miles, take a vet out for pancakes afterward. Most of the men were a little starstruck, especially the older fellas, but then one day he’d met Jimmy Fulton.

Jimmy had taken one look at Steve and started screaming about Steve had gotten all his friends killed and ruined his life. First Steve had thought the guy was just gone in the head and got to feeling sorry for him. But then he asked him “how?” and Jimmy’d said “in Vietnam” and that was strange. Turned out that army recruiters had sent a buncha special-edition Cap comics to his high school back in the 60s. Not just Jimmy’s high school, lots of high schools. Everybody wanted to be like Captain America. Except Steve never went to Vietnam, but that didn’t matter. They were just teenagers. A war was a war. Steve looked it up later at the library and learned that they’d even  [ lowered the army admission standards just to get more boots on the ground in Vietnam. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_100,000) They’d put up vintage Captain America posters everywhere.

So Steve wasn’t allowed to judge Stark.

Steve had been avoiding Stark, truth be told. It was hard to look him in the eye after figuring out how Howard had died,  on account of not knowing what the hell Tony would do with the information. It wasn’t lying, exactly. An omission. Not that Steve would be tore up about lying anyway. People thought he was honest as apple pie, but they maybe missed the part where he falsified enlistment forms and other shit like that. Steve didn’t mind lying, if lying was the right thing to do.

But he wasn’t sure what the right thing was when it came to Tony. Steve didn’t have hard facts about Howard and Maria’s deaths, just gut suspicions. He thought long and hard about what Peg might do in his situation. That was always a decent bet: do what Peggy would do. He’d still follow her lead like she were the North Star. But he couldn’t bear to ask her now. He didn’t want her carrying that knowledge.

The world split then: he couldn’t decide if Peggy was old and frail or still young and red-lipped, and his breath quickened. He threw some more snow in his face and shook his head like a goddamn dog:  _ wake up. _

 

“Morning, grandpa,” he heard a sly voice say, very close. His breath hitched in relief at the sound; that was Nat. 

“What’s with the snow bath?” she asked, a single eyebrow raised.

“Just trying to wake up,” he said.

She studied him, inferring that there was more to it, but not pressing the issue. Contrary to her statements, she really did seem to know everything.

“How’s the leg?”

“Fine.”

“Liar. You’re a terrible patient, you know that? Sit down.”

Steve eased himself onto a downed log resentfully. Even with all the practice he had as a kid, even with a bonafide nurse for a Ma, he still wasn’t so great at letting himself be taken care of.

“Sam already down in the hatch with Pietro?” he asked.

“Got an early start,” she said, “says he’s making progress.”

It bothered her how long it was taking, and it bothered Steve too, but maybe for different reasons.

“Sam says when Pietro’s more relaxed, he’s actually a sarcastic asshole,” she continued. “Which is a good sign. His personality is coming back, I guess. Unless it’s all an act.”

It was hard to argue with the raw emotions of Pietro’s behavior. But Natasha seemed to reserve the right to suspect the worst in people.

“I don’t think it’s an act,” Steve said.

“Of course you don’t.”

Steve wasn’t sure if she was insulting him or praising him or what. He couldn’t tell from her tone. “What, you think I’m naive?”

“I think you’re stubborn. I think you trust certain people to prove a point, not because they deserve it.”

He looked her right in the eyes. “Haven’t been wrong so far.”

She sat down next to him and crossed her arms at that, as if to say:  _ fine, you win this round. _ They had a perfect view of the shack. It could almost pass as an ice fishing shanty, were it next to a body of water.

“I used to live here, you know,” she said thoughtfully. “Off and on. With Clint.”

She didn’t open up much. He knew it cost her something to be close to anyone. These tidbits felt like Christmas morning gifts.

“Well, it’s a charming place,” he said. “A whole sink and everything. Very luxurious.”

She laughed louder than Steve expected.

“Hey, maybe I’ll buy it from you and set up house,” he joked, running with it, “I can’t seem to find an affordable place in Brooklyn. Hipsters keep hiking up the prices.”

“Sold.”

“Great. I’ll just need to make a few repairs, I think.”

“Oh, you’ll have to add on a kitchen for sure,” she said. “For entertaining.”

“Might be nice to have a tub that wasn’t a rubbermaid bucket.”

“Hmm, central heating might be nice,” Nat invented.

“I’ll definitely need a wrap around porch.”

“And maybe a few extra bedrooms for the kids,” she said. “You’re Captain America,” she clarified, like it was obvious, “You’re supposed to have a whole brood of strapping blonde children.”

“Nah, serum nixed that idea.”

She shot him a confused look.

“Unexpected side effect,” Steve said simply, and the game was over.

“Really?”

“I run too hot for uh, healthy production. Resting temp is 102. From the fast metabolism.  At least that’s what SSR doctors said when they figured it out.”

“They tested you for that?”

“You kiddin’ me? That was one of the  _ first _ things they tested me for. Dr. Erskine was gone. They didn’t know if they could replicate the formula. They didn’t come right out and say it, but I think they were wondering if they could  _ breed me _ . Ya know, maybe make a bunch of Supersoldiers for the  _ next _ war.”

“Well that’s sufficiently horrifying.”

“It’s alright. I never thought kids were gonna be in the cards anyhow. I know most people dream of all that, but I couldn’t even get a dame to go out on a date with me, and half the time the doctors were saying I was going to snuff it before I hit age 15, or 18, or 25. And plus...the way things were with Buck…guess I was just planning on being a confirmed bachelor, you know?”

His mouth was suddenly very dry. He’d never breathed a word of it to anyone.

“I mean, we never… _ he _ never...it wasn’t like that but — but then again sometimes I swear he — well, we never talked about it, how would I have even —and then he wanted me to marry Peg—joked about livin’ next door, he was  _ happy _ for us—it’s not like he and I coulda—but we—we were— ”

“—Steve,” she interrupted. “I know. Everyone knows.”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone who’s paying attention.”

“What about you?” Steve asked her, because he kind of hated talking about himself for longer than two minutes, and thinking about Bucky left an ache in his bones. “You and Barton gonna have a brood?”

“It’s not like that with Clint. Never was. Besides, I can’t have kids either.”

She didn’t sound sad about it. Just a little distant. “In the Red Room, where I was trained, where I was raised, um, they have a graduation ceremony. They sterilize you.”

He wanted to track down her handlers and strangle them blue. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was a kindness on their part. I’ve fucked a lot of terrible men. I sure as hell didn’t want to have their children.”

Steve nodded. He could see her point.

“And now...sometimes I wonder about it, what it would be like. But the older I get, the more I realize...that’s not a question I need answered.”

“Still, it woulda been nice to have had a choice about it,” Steve conceded, because he’d never really let himself think it for himself before.

“It would’ve been nice to have a choice,” she repeated as it started to snow.

Steve grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze and hoped she didn’t take it the wrong way. He wasn’t trying to put the moves on her. They locked eyes as the flakes fell around them and he knew the feeling was mutual, nameless feeling that it was. 

  
  


+++

  
  


“Pietro, buddy,” Sam said, exasperated, “just put the chair down. This isn’t WWE.”

“JUST KILL ME ALREADY IF YOU’RE GOING TO KILL ME .”

“Woah, woah. We’ve been over this. Nobody here wants to kill you, okay? But I need you to back off or I’m going to have to—”

“YOU’RE A LIAR.”

“Can we just get through one day without me having to sedate you? Please. Just for today. You can go back to business as usual tomorrow. But please. I know this is just as exhausting for you as it is for me. Put the damn chair down.”

Pietro looked murderous, but after a painfully long pause he did as he was asked. He sat down in the chair with a huff and crossed his arms. “I’m hungry,” he said, as if it were a revelation.

  
  


+++

  
  


When it was dark, Nat snugged up her bedroll next to Sam and said, “You’re going to have to show him the photos from those files,” with a sigh. 

“ _ Jesus _ , he already lived through it once, why make him see that?” Sam said, aghast.

“He wants to believe that what happened to him isn’t a big deal,” she whispered. “Remind him that it happened to other people. It...puts things into a different perspective. He’s been trained to devalue himself. But when it’s other people...it makes it...more real. Somehow.”

“Nat?”

“Hm?”

“You wanna spoon or something? I’m down to spoon.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

She scooted in anyway, and wrapped her arms around him, even though Sam thought it should’ve been the other way around.

  
  


+++

  
  


“War broke out in heaven,” Wanda said. “Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon. The Dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great Dragon was thrown down and his angels were thrown down with him.”

Strucker was visiting the pit. He said nothing back but he pinched her nose and happy-smiled, because she would defeat the Stark-Dragon.

  
  


+++

  
  


“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pietro told Sam, mouth full of canned pasta, “This stuff is delicious.” 

He washed it all down with a bottle of Gatorade, which he consumed in a maybe a minute flat, and then looked intensely guilty over it. Sam worried the kid was going to throw it all back up after seeing the photos he was about to show him.

  
  


+++

  
  


She was all alone in the expanding universe. She was neither living nor dead. 

  
  


+++

  
  


“We were just little kids, having dinner,” Pietro said, talking to himself more than Sam. The guy still wasn’t great at making eye contact. But this was still a vast improvement. “The four of us. When the first shell hits, two floors below, it makes a hole in the floor. It's big. Our parents go in, and the whole building starts coming apart. I grab my sister, roll under the bed and the second shell hits. But, it doesn't go off. It just...sits there in the rubble, three feet from our faces. And on the side of the shell is painted one word...Stark. I could barely read but I knew that word. We were trapped for two days. Every effort to save us, every shift in the bricks and I think, ‘This will set it off.’ But it didn’t. We got out. We made it.” 

“I can’t imagine how hard that must’ve been,” Sam said. “Nobody should have to go through that.” And then, he pulled at the most important thread, because he knew that look, he’d seen in on plenty of client’s faces. When they’d hinted at the thing they really needed to talk about.

“So you have a sister?”

No answer. But he looked about half his age all of the sudden.

“Is she a uh, a volunteer too?”

He winced. “Yes,” he managed to say, a muscle in his face jumping. Sam could see it all over him: the confusion, the paradigms of who he trusted a jumbled mess.

“...Do you know where she is?”’

“Yes,” he choked out, and then acted mad about it.

“If you tell us where she is, we can help her —”

“YOU’RE LYING,” he roared. “IT’S A TRICK. YOU’LL JUST KILL HER LIKE YOU’RE GOING TO KILL ME, I CAN’T LET YOU —”

Sam didn’t pull the gun this time; he grabbed Pietro by the shoulders, which shocked him into silence and just shocked him, period. He winced again and Sam knew it was as good a time as any to reenact that scene from  _ Good Will Hunting _ , minus the hug, because nope, not ready for that.

“Pietro, listen to me. I know you’re trying to protect her from us. I get that. But tell me something, is she really any safer where she is?”

He didn’t kick out. Just started shaking. He was afraid for her. “I should’ve never let her join.”

“What happened wasn’t your fault, okay?  I know it’s hard to understand right now, but what’s been happening to you and your sister is not your fault. What Hydra did to you was really not okay. We’re trying to stop them. For good. But we need your help. Will you help us?”

 

_ “Y-yes.” _

  
  


+++

  
  


Natasha had to hand it to Sam. When the answers finally came, they came in a deluge instead of a slow trickle. Suddenly they had every fact they needed to mount a ground assault: location, a general rundown of Strucker’s army, the atrocious ins and outs of the program, and a surprising yet not surprising twist: Loki’s scepter was behind it. No wonder the volunteers submitted to torture. They were being mind controlled by the damned thing. Pietro’s mind was slowly recovering the longer he spent away from it. He was scared to go back near it, but not as scared as he was of this “weapon” they were building, or most of all, losing his twin. 

“I’m going to need all the tech you’ve got,” she told Tony over the phone. “Bring me a quinjet full of toys —and Steve needs another suit, too.”

“I just finished a new stealth design,” Tony said.

“No, bring a classic. ‘44 style,” she said. Because she understood now. It was sweet, and stupid, and incredibly naive, but she understood. Every mission they’d run since the helicarrier, every HYDRA outpost they’d hit: Steve wanted to be recognized by Barnes in the off chance he was there, to jog his memory if found.

“Anything else I should bring? Vodka? How about a tank?”

“Tony—there’s something you should know about about our informant.”

“Who, the lab rat kid? Does he have powers? How about invisibility? I could really use someone on the team with invisibility. We’ve got flying and super strength covered already.”

“He’s not enhanced. It’s not that.”

“What is it, then?”

When Natasha finished the story, Tony didn’t speak for a very long time.

  
  


+++

  
  


“Whatever man!” Clint said, sweating. His arm hurt like fuck and he had pizza sauce on his face. “It's a scam.”

Thor picked up his hammer easily and flipped it.

“Showoff,” Clint said. “Sit the fuck down.”

Thor shoved an entire slice of pizza into his mouth happily like some sort of benevolent golden frat bro. Clint approved with a smack to Thor’s shoulder. They were like two ten year olds at a Chuck E Cheese, except this wasn’t a Chuck E Cheese, it was the cargo bay of a quinjet. Eye-Patch was flying it. They been searching for the Loki’s Demon Glow Stick in Italy and hadn’t found a fucking thing except some really good fucking pizza.

“I still don’t know how you do it,” said Clint, mouth full. “What is it like, finger print locked, like an iPhone?”  

“That’s an interesting theory. I have a better one: you’re simply not worthy.”

“Fuck you, man. I don’t wanna rule Asgard anyway. They don’t even have In-N-Out Burger.”

“I do not understand.”

“Shit, have you not had In-N-Out yet? Jesus. In-N-Out. The Animal Style fries. We’ll go later. But first you gotta tell me if anyone else has lifted that fucking hammer.”

Thor lifted the entire 2 liter of Coke to his lips and took a swig. “I know not of what you speak.”

“C’mon, I can’t be the only one who’s tried this. Spill.”

“Only one within our team has come close to lifting it.”

“It was Cap, wasn’t it? Fucking has to be.”

“Captain Rogers never  _ tried _ to lift it. However, I will confess, that he once bumped into it and it...moved. Slightly. Even the Captain himself did not notice. This secret must be kept between us, on penalty of your life, Barton.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Clint agreed. “Lips are sealed. Guess that’s fair. Considering you know  _ my _ biggest secret now.”

Two weeks ago after another failed Glow Stick mission Clint had said that he was “sick of this needle in a haystack shit” and Thor and been Thor and asked what a fucking  _ haystack _ was and it was really too much to resist, so Clint took him to the farm. Thor had been surprised, just like anyone else from the team who’d found out that he had a wife and two kids and one on the way.

Yeah, yeah, it was traditional: Farmhouse in the country, homegrown food, stories at bedtime. That was the fun part, being traditional. Nothing in his entire life leading up to Laura had been traditional. Same was true for Laura with him — she used to like smoking weed and sleeping with strangers. That was how they had met in the first place, at a bar in Bed-Stuy in the men’s bathroom. Clint had been a circus freak, always on the road.

He and Laura didn’t really have a clue how to parent. They let the kids stay up and Cooper may or may not have been gifted a throwing axe recently, but they made do. The fact was they could barely take care of themselves, but other people? They loved taking care of other people. They’d taken Nat under their wing without much hesitation, and they would’ve had plenty more kids if nature would’ve allowed it. There were complications, though, so this baby was going to have to be their last.

He couldn’t have what they had with anyone else, and if anybody ever tried to fuck with it, there’d be hell to pay.

Which was why he was still on the hunt for this Glow Stick. It was bad fucking news and he really didn’t appreciate the not-consensual mind-fuck it had given him. He was going to find that fucking scepter and break it in half —that is unless Thor beat him to it. Thor felt responsible for the whole fucking  _ planet’s _ problems. Hell, Thor felt responsible for  _ two _ planet’s problems. Thor wanted to find the scepter but at the same time Clint could tell Thor  _ didn’t _ want to find the scepter, because that meant it was time to go home and face the music and the fact that both his mom and brother died. It was like some serious Lifetime movie shit. Yet Thor was such a chill dude, always game to do something crazy and dangerous, or just plain dumb, like when they ran naked and drunk through a mini-golf course recently. It was at night, okay? Nobody saw. The dude was supposed to be king of a realm or something.

“Your device is pulsing with light,” Thor said.

“What? Oh, shit.” Clint picked up his phone.

“What continent are you on?” said Natasha on the other side of the line.

“Hello to you too. Europe.”

“Perfect. You think you could swing by our old safehouse?”

“Do we have a mission or do you just wanna chill?”

“We know where the scepter is.”

“I’m on my way,” Clint said.

“Whole team’s on the way. We need all hands on deck for this one.”

“Looks like In-N-Out will have to wait,” Clint said to Thor.

  
  


+++

  
  


“I don’t think I should go,” Bruce said warily. He was wearing a bathrobe and his hair was mussed  ~~ and he looked like he wanted to slam the door in Tony’s face. ~~

“We’re about to wipe out HYDRA and you want to what, eat bon-bons?”

_ “Tony.” _

“I’ll have Veronica on stand-by. I’ve got this. How long before you trust me?”

“It’s not you I don’t trust.”

“Okay, save the angst for a poetry reading. I’m not really one for inspirational pep talks, so how about we skip the part where I tell you’re not a monster and you just get your ass in gear? You’ve played out this scene like 12,000 times. It’s redundant plotting.”

“The nature of my condition is redundant.”

“That can be the title of your next poem.”

“I don’t think I should go.”

“We need you, Bruce,” Tony said, completely free of bullshit, practically naked, totally exposed, holy shit, how mature.

Bruce shuffled his feet and hesitated, leaning on the doorframe. “Okay. But if this goes south, you know I’m out of here, right? I don’t see how I’ll have any other option.” 

~~Much to his horror, Tony’s throat got a little tight. He had almost finished the upstate headquarters. It was going to be a surprise.~~

“It’ll be fine,” Tony said, and he wasn’t the kind of guy to pray, at all, but he sent up the briefest of pleas to some deity, Odin maybe, that what he had just said wouldn’t end up being a lie.

  
  


+++

  
  


Why the Midgardians called this dwelling a safehouse, Thor did not know. It appeared that a gentle breeze might sway it. It had not a great hall for feasting, but that was no matter, for it was not the time for feasting. It was time for the strategies. The enemy was mighty, but fortunately, Thor was mightier. All of his comrades were strong, if not in body than at least in spirit, even the newest one among them, who remained underground as they spoke. The Captain told of Pietro’s suffering, and of a man called Strucker, once thought dead by SHIELD, whose malfeasance involved experimenting upon the young. Banner’s rage at the news was unparalleled, and he excused himself to invoke calm within his mind and avoid his more powerful form. Stark’s demeanor was quieter than previously thought possible. After the strategizing had ended and the plan was set, they all suited up for battle. Loki’s scepter was within his grasp, and Hydra was to be crushed. At long last. 

 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**PART THREE**

* * *

 

  
  


“REPORT TO YOUR STATIONS IMMEDIATELY,” a voice over loudspeaker said, “THIS IS NOT A DRILL. WE ARE UNDER ATTACK. I REPEAT, WE ARE UNDER ATTACK.”

 

The time has come, Herr Strucker said, to fight so many things: Stark and Hulk and Widow Black, and Captain and King, and oh your rage is boiling hot, it just might give you wings. 

"I will not yield," the Wanda cried,

"I will do my best.”

"You’re ready," said Herr Strucker,

And thanked her much for that.

Outside the pit, she staggered back, one arm against the wall. “ _ Pietro? _ ” she thought; she could feel him near. It was impossible.

 

_ “It’s me,” _ he said back with his mind. 

" _You’re alive?”_

_ “No, I’m communicating telepathically from the grave.” _

_ “What?” _

_ “You dummy, of course I’m alive! _ ”

She let out a laugh-sob.  _ “How did you get away from The Avengers?” _

_ “...I didn’t. There’s not much time to explain. Wanda, we were wrong. We were wrong about them.” _

_ “...they’re manipulating you.” _

_ “No. Listen. Strucker is the one who has been poisoning our minds.” _

_ “TRAITOR.” _

Pietro’s head burned. He fell down in the bay of the quinjet. He was hiding there on Sam’s orders.  _ “Come to me where it’s safe from the fighting. You don’t have to do what he says.” _

_ “My powers are a gift. And I intend to use them. The American scum _ —”

_ “They aren’t what Strucker said they are! They’re idiots, but they’re not evil. They’re not against us. They were kind to me. And the bombs...Wanda, they weren’t really Stark’s. All this time...” _

_ “WHO ARE YOU? THIS IS NOT PIETRO.” _

_ “I know it’s hard to believe, I didn’t believe it at first. But it wasn’t his fault. They want to help us.” _

_ “You are compromised...They’re using you to get inside my head...they’re trying to distract me from the mission…stay where you are, where it’s safe. Don’t get in the way. We’ll work this out when I’m done with them.” _

It was as if the line went dead. Pietro could feel it — she’d blocked him out. But he could feel her fury and utter confusion lingering, like an echo. She was going to kill them all, or die trying. She was out of her mind. Without thinking about it, he was on his feet and running, fast as his feet could carry him. She needed him.

Once he was in the trees something happened — something shifted,  _ clicked _ . The forest started to blur, because he was moving faster than humanly possible. Pain wasn’t the only force that released power.

  
  


+++

  
  


Holy fucking shit, these Hydra goons didn’t mess around. Clint shot a few arrows at a dude holding a laser gun just before Nat swerved the jeep to dodge the blast of a cannon. Snow exploded everywhere. It vaguely reminded him of the time he planted firecrackers in an igloo as a kid. He grew up in Iowa, okay? There wasn’t much else to do in winter.

“So the dining room,” Clint said as the jeep sped forward toward the castle, “If I knock out that east wall, it'd make a nice workspace for Laura, huh? Put up some baffling so she can't hear the kids running around. What do you think?”

“You guys always eat in the kitchen anyway,” Nat said, a little distracted, because Steve Rogers had just decided to _ throw a motherfucking motorcycle _ at an armoured Hydra vehicle. Then he was just throwing his shield at these goons like it was second nature, and Clint supposed it was. This shit was old hat for Cap.

Thor was doing backflips. He flew up onto what looked like a giant-ass deer stand full of soldiers and then went full-on Whack-A-Mole with them, hitting those Nazi fuckers right on their heads with the hammer. Sorry, not Nazis. “Hydra.” (They were totally fucking Nazis.)

Then Thor and Steve teamed up —Steve held the shield up and Thor thwacked it with the hammer and a whole bastion of soldiers flew up in the air, blown back from the magical Asgardian-American reverberations or whatever the hell. Those goons looked like ragdolls getting tossed out a car window. Weeeeeeee, thump.

“Jarvis, what's the view from upstairs?” Steve asked over the radio. There was mic feedback in Clint’s ear.

Jarvis answered back: “The castle is protected by some kind of energy shield.”

A metallic thud rang out in everyone’s earpieces. Because Tony had just fucking flew into that energy shield and bounced off.

“Do you see a power source for this thing?” Tony asked Jarvis.

“There's a particle wave below the north tower,” Jarvis said.

“Great,” Tony said gleefully, “I want to poke it with something. And by something I mean  _ The Hulk _ .”

Clint could see Tony zooming through the air, leading the Hulk toward the castle in the distance. Hulk plowed right through the walls, rocks and bricks flying sky high. A horde of soldiers came spilling out like angry ants. Where did all these motherfuckers even come from? There were too many of them. Did Hydra recruit on 4chan message boards?

“Drawbridge is down, people,” Tony said. Thor and Sam flew off in the castle’s direction.

“Why aren’t we  _ all _ wearing wings? Like what is the fucking point of being a groundling?” Clint asked into his radio, because it was fucking unfair. He and Nat ditched the jeep by leaping from it mid-turn. Immediately she took out a few soldiers with her lethal acrobatic shit. A spin, a kick, her thighs around a dude’s neck, snap. Bye bye Nazis.

“Sam, what’s your status?” Steve asked into his radio.

“Just patrolling the air around this place like you ordered,” Sam said, annoyed. “Because I’m not a real Avenger and if I die here today you’ll never forgive yourself, blah blah blah.”

“Thor?” Steve asked, “do you have eyes on the scepter?”

“Not yet. The girl tried to warp my mind as I entered the fortress. Take special care, I doubt a human could keep her at bay.”

“Stark?” Steve said, worried. “Stark, what’s your status?”

No answer. 

 

Clint, Nat, and Cap made it to the entrance of castle just in time to see Hulk roar the kind of roar that made Clint want to piss his pants in fear. Then Hulk charged off into the city, raging and totally AWOL.

“Sam,” Steve said, “Follow Hulk. Try like hell to move every civilian out of harm’s way until we can get to the city. Calm him down if you can.”

“Copy that,” Sam said, all static. “But you guys better hurry, there’s a ton of soldiers over here too. I think...I think they were waiting for us.”

“How many?” Steve asked.

“My official estimation is A Shit-Ton,” Sam answered.

“Try to lead Banner away from it, it’s only going to make him worse,” Steve said, alarmed.

“What the fuck is going  _ on _ ?” Clint asked. “They trying to motherfucking ambush us?”

Something sped past Clint’s left side and knocked him over. He was suddenly all tangled up with that Pietro kid on the ground.

“Sorry,” Pietro said, pulling them both up. 

“Where the fuck did you come from? I thought you were waiting in the jet.”

“I ran here,” he said.

“The  _ fuck _ ?”

“Were you in contact with them?” Nat growled at him. For someone so stoic, she really had no chill sometimes, especially when she thought she’d been double crossed.

“NO,” Pietro said.

“You said the army was small.”

“It  _ was. _ ”

“I know this play,” she said. “The wounded mole. Is that what you are?”

“Nat —” Steve started.

“No,” Pietro said.

“Then why’d you hide the fact you had powers?” Nat asked.

“I didn’t know I had them. I  _ didn’t _ have them until...I needed them.”  

This was clearly not a good enough response for Natasha. But then a shot rang out from a bunker and Pietro moved Clint and Nat just in time. Holy shit. Thanks, kid.

“What?” Pietro said, smug. “You didn’t see that coming?”

Apparently now that he wasn’t all in shock and traumatized, this guy was actually a little shit, according to Nat. He kind of gave off Euro-Douche vibes, especially with that bleached hair. All he needed was some chain necklaces and a track suit. Clint found himself feeling annoyed and incredibly fond.

“So you gonna fight Hydra with us or what?” Clint asked him.

“I’m going to save my sister,” he said. Well, alright then. The more the merrier.

“I don’t need saving, Pietro,” an eerie voice said, and all the hairs on the back of Clint’s neck stood up, and the four of them whirled around.

This was some next-level  _ The Ring _ shit. This girl was fucking floating inches off the ground. Fucking FLOATING toward them, and her hair was all long and scraggly and in her face and her pupils were so dilated her eyes looked black. She was waving her hands and arms around like a stoned chick dancing at coachella. She was going to fucking kill them with the red laser smoke she shot out of her fingers. Clint ducked and managed to miss it, but Nat was hit, and when Cap ran to Nat’s side, he was hit too, and even Pietro got in the middle of it, and then everything went sideways.

  
  


+++

  
  


_ Natasha knew this feeling, except it wasn’t a feeling. It was the absence of feeling, the familiar emptiness that used to overtake her every time she made a kill against her own real will. Images flashed through her head: ballet shoes, Madame B, blood splatter. And the emptiness, that was the worst part. That was the part that allowed her to survive it all, but it threatened to drown her now, the bleakness of it. She was falling into a black hole. She was nothing but a shell. She was nothing but a gun. _

 

+

 

_ “The war is over,” Peggy said in her red party dress. And Christ, Steve loved her, the way she spun for him.  _

_ The dancehall was noisy, busy; all the Howlies were there in uniform, drinking beers and laughing instead of crouching quiet in dug-out trenches. And there was Bucky, lindy-hopping with a blonde like old times, his smile as sly and happy as a big jazz band. That smile knocked any and all sense outta Steve _ _ —he’d charge into Austria with nothing but stage props all over again; he’d hang from a speeding train; he’d die on a helicarrier, willingly; he’d do anything. _

_ “We can all go home,” Peggy said, and then everyone else disappeared, long gone, and it was just him and Bucky in their rat-trap apartment in Brooklyn. _

_ “Who are you?” the Soldier growled, pulling a knife. _

_ “Don’t you know me, Buck?” _

_ “No.” _

 

_ + _

 

_ Thor had been away from home for far too long and in his absence had come ruin.  _

 

_ \+  _

 

_ “Closed casket is of course recommended in these situations,” the old woman said to Tony, handing him a leaflet.  _

 

_ \+  _

 

_ Natalia was numb, gone, nothing. She was a gift to her country. She had no place in the world.  _

_ But then:  _ “Nat. Nat, wake up. C’mon.”

_ Clint’s voice. _

Clint, who had pulled her out of all of this once before. Clint, who had risked everything on the off chance she’d change. There was a flood of images again: the shot she somehow didn’t take, Cooper’s handprints on a piece of construction paper, the front porch with Laura in Spring. It was like coming back up after being underwater and she gasped as air filled her lungs again.

“Nat? You awake? You with me?”

“Yes,” she said.

 

+

 

_ Another 70 years had passed. Steve had been left behind again. He didn’t know where he was, or why. All he knew was that the war was never really over. Not for him. He was going to live forever like this, adrift.  _

 

_ “Steve,” _ Nat said, her hands on his face. His breath hitched and his eyes flew open to the here and now. 

  
  


+++

  
  


They were all of them in cages. 

The bars of their enclosures glowed red with Wanda’s magic, impossible to bend, and certainly not in their current conditions.

They’d been separated into categories: Clint and a suit-less Tony were crammed into a cage together, mere humans that that they were. Steve and Natasha were also a set. Thor was alone and still out cold.

Pietro was handcuffed to a steel beam on the other side of the room.  _ “For your own good,” _ Wanda had said, torn but determined, the taste of justice on the tip of her tongue. The Avengers’ weapons lay in a heap at her feet. A suit, a shield, guns, a bow with arrows.

“I was going to let her kill you,” Strucker said to the Avengers, “but I must confess I find you all so fascinating. It would be a shame to dispose of you without gleaning what data I can first.” He said all of this as if he were dictating a grocery list.

In his hands he held vials of blood. Steve noticed a puncture mark in the crook of his arm. Natasha examined hers, brushing her thumb over it. She felt exposed by the tiny violation. He had taken something from them in their most vulnerable state.

“Miss Romanoff, you are full of surprises, aren’t you?” he said, holding up her vial to his eye. “Last I saw you, you had no enhancements. But that was a long time ago, wasn’t it?”

“Not long enough,” Natasha said sweetly.

“What do you want?” Steve snarled at him. He was still out of breath from his nightmare.

Tony was the one who answered the question: “Oh, let me guess. World domination, unlimited power, yada yada. Go ahead. Give us your villain speech. It’ll give us just enough time to figure out how to break out of here.”

“I want,” Strucker said to Steve, ignoring Tony, “what any other creature wants.”

“And what’s that?” Steve asked.

“The security of my species.”

Clint actually laughed out loud. “Right. Right. Because the white species is under attack.” He was having troubling getting the words out from the laughter. “The Aryan species — is so  _ oppressed _ — you gotta perfect it so it endures forever.”

Strucker surveyed him inquisitively. “Why is it that a man such as yourself would act against his own race’s elevation?”

“Cause I’m not a fucking Nazi, that’s why,” Clint spit.

Strucker rolled his eyes and waved his hand nonchalantly. “Call me whatever you’d like. All I really am is a scientist.”

“Well, you must be a shitty one,” Tony said, “if you have to steal equipment from those “lesser races” you seem hate.”

“I assume you’re referring to The Cradle,” Strucker said. It was in the corner of room, its contents indistinguishable but emitting a low gold glow.

“That your secret weapon?” Steve asked.

“It will be. But first I’ll need Mr. Stark’s expertise on a few matters.”

“Nope. Nu-uh. Not going to happen. Just go ahead and kill me,” Tony said with remarkable aplomb.  

Strucker drew his gun and shot Clint casually; the bullet grazed Clint’s torso and he fell down, clutching at the bleeding wound. Steve rattled wildly at his own cage and then staggered back from the excruciating pulse it emitted at his touch.

 

“Wanda,” Pietro whispered. She was standing right next to him, watching it all unfold with wonder. “You can stop this. Please. Let them go and we can run away, just us, okay? This isn’t going to fix anything.”

She kept her blazing, unphased focus. “Stark needs to pay for what he did to the people of Sokovia.”

This was her script, her primary directive, her  _ life. _

 

“What is it you need to know?” Tony asked Strucker, as he applied pressure to Clint’s injury. “What’s the problem? I’ve studied Cho’s work a little. I can — ”  

“Tony,  _ don’t, _ ” Steve implored.

“I’m with Cap on this,” Clint gritted out. “You know we’d all rather die than help this guy. Hey, listen. I’m serious. It’s gonna fucking suck to watch, but don’t let it mess with you.”

“I’m having difficulty integrating AI into the body I’ve created. I used code from your old Ultron program,” — he smiled at that — “along with the stone from the scepter — ”

“There was a stone in the scepter?” Tony marveled.

“ — but I’m not sure it’s enough,” Strucker finished.

“Tony,  _ don’t, _ ” Steve said again. And so Tony hesitated, jaw clenched, ready to take a bullet.

This time, when Strucker pulled his gun, he shot Steve twice in the shoulder, and then Natasha once in the thigh. Natasha’s hands were on Steve’s wound immediately; they helped ease each other to the ground.

“Look, I don’t know what to tell you,” Tony said to Strucker urgently. “What you’re trying to do hasn’t been done before. But you can have my AI Jarvis. Uplink is in my helmet. When it asks for the password I’ll have to say it for voice recognition.”

Strucker seemed intrigued by this. He did as Tony suggested, taking the helmet to his computers while the team triaged.

“Stark, you idiot,” Steve whispered, wincing.

“Yeah, love you too, sweetheart,” Tony said quietly. “At least this buys us some time. And what’s Jarvis really going to do? Provide housekeeping tips? We need a plan. How’s Goldilocks doing over there?”

“I can’t get Thor to respond,” Natasha said. She’d called his name to no avail.

Tony swallowed thickly.“...I mean, he’s not...?”

“No, he’s not dead, I can see he’s still breathing. He’s just...I don’t know, it’s like he’s still in a trance.”

“Only way outta this mess is the girl,” Steve said raggedly, and Tony hated how right Steve was.

Tony’s said it before and he’d say it again: we create our own demons. His was on the other side of the room.

  
  
  


+++   
  


 

Sam barrel rolled to avoid a cannon blast. He hadn’t seen this much enemy fire in a long time, but the sounds of the mortars were still less scary than the complete radio silence that had settled in. He focused on swooping up one Sokovian after another and moving them to safety; there was nothing else for it. 

“Fury, where the hell are you?” he said into his transmitter. “The calvary needed to arrive like yesterday.”

“Five minutes,” Fury said, and God, that was a relief. “These helicarriers don’t have motherfucking hyper-drive. Try not to die for five more minutes.”

Bruce threw a car. The soldiers threw a grenade in response. Sam had to dodge both, seeing as he was in the middle of it all. “I can make no guarantees.”

“I’ve got an emissary that should get there ahead of schedule,” Fury said.

“I like that,” Rhodey said, zooming to Sam’s side in the air. “The Emissary. Sounds less blatantly hostile than War Machine.”

“‘Blatantly hostile sounds just fine to me at the moment,” Sam said. “Do me a favor and repulsor blast those sons of bitches, will you?”

Rhodey aimed and fired at a tank that was crawling closer. “Yeah! War Machine coming at you.”

“Don’t get too excited,” Sam said, because two more tanks just arrived on the scene. Bruce climbed to the top of a building like King Kong and yelled viciously.

“What the hell happened to Banner?” Rhodey asked. “I know Hulk is not the most chill guy to begin with, but this is on another level.”

“I don’t know.”

The building crumbled under Hulk’s weight.

“We’ve got to move this fight out of the city,” Sam said. He flew to Bruce and attempted to get his attention. “Hey, big guy. You recognize me?” There was another yell; clearly a no. “Okay, you wanna follow me anyway? Let’s go over there to that giant-ass forest way over there with zero people. How about that?”

Hulk swatted at Sam like he were a fly. Hulk looked like he wanted to pull the wings right off of him.

“Okay, new strategy,” Sam said. “Don’t fuck with Hulk at the moment. Concentrate on his agitators.”

“That’s exactly what we plan to do,” Maria Hill said.

The helicarrier had arrived.  Agents poured out of it: the remnants of SHIELD and then some, all with armor on and weapons drawn, Hill leading the charge. Hydra’s soldiers shifted focus. And so it was Hydra vs. SHIELD; a deathmatch, a bonafide boots on the ground battle, two sides of the same coin going at it once again. All the while Bruce’s worse half was clearly experiencing some kind of panic attack smack-dab in the middle of it.

  
  


+++

  
  


The Cradle was sparking and beeping as Strucker pressed buttons. His weapon was close to rising. All the while, Steve was dangerously close to bleeding out. 

 

“Hang in there, Grandpa,” Nat said, just before kissing his forehead. His skin was pale and clammy. 

“Been hit worse than this,” he said. “Good thing I heal fast. Do you? You heal fast too?”

She’d had some version of the serum, maybe. He wanted to know more. He wanted to know how he’d managed to miss it.

“I heal pretty fast. But...I’m not the same as you,” she said.

“You are,” Steve said, and he wasn’t really talking about serums anymore. “I know you think we’re different, but we’re not. You’re no worse and I’m no better, ya hear?”

“Shhh. Pain’s making you sentimental. Save it.” She kissed him again. 

 

The power flickered. The room went from light to dark to light several times over and they all looked up at the high ceilings, wary, before their eyes returned to Strucker’s Weapon. 

“Thank you, Stark,” Strucker said. “Thanks to you I seem to be approaching a breakthrough.”

“Have you never read any Mary Shelley?” Tony asked. “I’ll spoil it for you: This whole Frankenstein’s monster thing doesn’t end well.”

“It’s no monster,” Strucker said. “It’s a  _ vision _ . A human perfected at last.”

“Jesus, you haven’t read Darwin either? I should get you a book club membership. I’ll spoil that too: You know the Next Step usually kills off its predecessor, right? So an Aryan-cyborg is probably not your best bet for ensured survival.”

The chamber hissed. Steam started pouring out of it. They all braced themselves.

 

“You can stop this,” Pietro told Wanda with a whisper. He was terrified. Anything made with that scepter couldn’t be kind. “Let them go and they’ll protect us from it.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or  _ won’t _ ?”

“I—” she faltered.

“Look inside Strucker’s head,” Pietro urged. “You’ll see I’m right.”

“Herr Strucker and I trust each other,” Wanda said.

“You trust  _ him _ more than  _ me _ ?”

“No, but…”

“He was going to kill me,” Pietro said. “You know that right?”

“That’s not true.”

“It  _ is _ ,” he said.

_“Stop,”_ she told Pietro. Objects in the room started to float due to her agitation and confusion: a beaker, stray papers, a hamster wheel.

“He doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t care about our country. If you hadn’t mutated, he would’ve killed you and thrown your body in a pile like he was going to do to me, like he did to the rest.”

“THAT’S NOT TRUE,” Wanda yelled, and several things happened at once: Strucker walked over, alarmed and annoyed. Then she remembered the test subject she’d killed, how hazy it all was, how she’d only realized what she’d done after the fact. And the floating objects in the lab started to spin, like they were trapped in a dust devil.

“She needs to concentrate. You need to stop distracting her,” Strucker ordered.

“What would you do to stop me, huh?” Pietro said, bucking up, yanking and straining against the handcuffs. “What would you do, eh? You going to kill me right in front of her?”

Strucker put his hand on Pietro’s forearm and gave it a threatening squeeze. “You’re upsetting her,” he said quietly in his ear.

“SHE SHOULD BE UPSET, AFTER WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO HER.”

Wanda covered her ears and the dust devil turned into a full blown tornado. The earth itself started to shake. They were all trapped in the chaos of it, ducking their heads as glass shattering overhead. Windows broke open and debris flung every which way. The Cradle rolled over on its side, sparks flying, wires arcing and tangling.

“LOOK INSIDE HIS HEAD,” Pietro said over the din of the wind.

“I  _ can’t _ ,” she cried. It felt unachievable. There was a roadblock, a wall. She doubted everything then: Pietro, Strucker, herself most of all. There was only one clear thought in the whole of her mind:  _ Stark. _

She went to him. She stood in the center of the storm and she stared him down, and he stood up in his cell and stared right back.

She threw open every door inside his mind, searching for the information she needed, for the callous deal that destroyed her life. But it wasn’t there. It wasn’t there. She searched his mind and found many things, but that wasn’t there. Pietro was right, it hadn’t been his call. And hidden away in the darkest corner of his head, she found —

 

_ “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it,” he joked to the cops at the door, putting his hands in the air.  _

_ “We’re sorry, son,” the taller one said, “but there’s been an accident.” _

 

_ Her neck itched from the suit he’d worn to their funeral. She tasted saltwater, inexplicably: the tears he’d held in over the years, all of them a flood. They burned in her eyes and she convulsed, taking on all of his grief, and he hers, both possessed by the other’s; an exchange. He heard the missiles in his ear, the ringing that stung after. He shook from the terror of the long wait. He felt true hunger for the first time; the gnaw of a starved belly and the willingness to do anything to soothe it.  _

_ Eyes locked, they couldn’t blink, or hardly breathe. She couldn’t tell where her pain ended and his began. They were the same. They were the same. _

 

_ She saw inside all of their minds, then, at once: taking on their collective mistakes and flaws and triumphs, their grief and loss. She was bowed over, almost crushed by it, while each of them suffered her highs and lows. They were all strapped down to that table with her. They knew what it was to glow blue now. They were all the same.  _

_ She saw Strucker the way they saw Strucker. She learned all they knew about Strucker. She turned to him and looked, finally, inside his head, sense of betrayal overwhelming. _

_ There was only annihilation in his mind. He derived pleasure in harming. His mind sought ways to damage. She tried to show him what she felt, but he didn’t register it. No room, no space for it. There was no remorse and no love for her. _

There was a burst of red light from her chest, like an explosion; everyone was blown back. The whirlwind ceased and the earth trembled. From across the room, Strucker scrambled to his feet.

“Finish them,” he ordered.

“No,” Wanda gasped.

He pointed the gun at her head. He’d lost her and he knew it. It had only been a matter of time. She didn’t try to stop him, still couldn’t. All she’d learned and she still couldn’t.

Before he took the shot, the earth shook again. But it wasn’t Wanda’s doing.

Hulk ruptured through the castle’s wall and looked down at the scene. Without hesitation, he brought his foot down deliberately on Strucker with a sickening crunch, just before running off in the opposite direction of the city.

  
  


_ +++ _

  
  


Hydra’s forces were quite literally headed for the hills, scattering in front of Sam’s eyes like the cowards they were. Once Hulk had regained his composure (what little Hulk had, anyway), he’d targeted them with precision, denting their numbers enough so that Fury’s forces finally had the upper hand. 

It wasn’t a clear victory, by any means. But the fight was dying down.

He pulled a coughing boy from the rubble. 

  
  


+++

  
  


They stood semi-circled with every weapon aimed at the Weapon, prepared to attack; it had crawled out of the Cradle amidst the tumult.

Wanda put a hand to her mouth to hold in her scream. What they all heard instead was prolonged, dumbstruck silence.

Steve really missed when the weirdest thing science ever made was him and not whatever this guy was.

Strucker would’ve been disappointed: his creation wasn’t white. He was...pink. Or some classy shade of burgundy. Clint thought he looked like a naked, human shaped bottle of strawberry jam.

Thor knew the stone in the Weapon’s head was an infinity stone. He’d just dreamed of it. Of a whirlpool that sucked in all hope of life. The stone was at its center.

Tony had about 4,000 questions for this thing, and he would’ve asked them if he weren’t certain it would blast him into pieces. Tony had helped build this creature. It was inevitable that it was deadly.

The Weapon took a step forward and they all stepped back. This was it: the moment.

But then it was who Natasha lowered her gun.

“I’m Nat,” she said, stepping forward, swallowing her fear. The Weapon cocked its head at her and said nothing. Maybe it wasn’t programed to have a voice.

Nobody in the room breathed, least of all Nat. Her expression was open, naked as a newborn. Maybe this creature would kill her, maybe it wouldn’t; all she knew was that she wanted to give it a chance.

“You don’t have to be what they made you to be,” she said. “You can be something else.”

The creature smiled faintly. It seemed as perplexed as they were by its existence. “H-hello,” it said.

“Why does it sound like Jarvis?” Thor asked.

“It’s part Jarvis,” Tony answered, still in shock. “It’s part...Ultron.”

“Loki’s schemes, the horrors in our heads —they all came from that stone, the Mind Stone. And they’re nothing compared to what else it might unleash—”

“I mean you no harm,” the creature spoke. “I am not Jarvis...I am not Ultron...I am...well, I don’t know what I am.”

Scared but curious, Wanda looked into his head. A warmth came over her. He was going to save the world someday.

“He’s good,” she said with surprise.

They all turned to her. They shouldn’t trust her but they did now, there was no way they couldn’t. They had seen to the other side of her soul and back again, and her into theirs.

“He’s good,” she said again, trembling, hoping, believing.  “He can be good. I see it.”

  
  
  
  


 

**EPILOGUE**

* * *

 

  
  


Many moon cycles must pass before the Wanda brain is steady and not shaky. A barn is warmer than a dumpster-place. 

Laura-Mom held a fresh baby on her hip and said, “Come into the house, silly,” but Wanda likes the hay because she can’t accidentally hurt it. Pietro does the farm chores in a flash every morning as the rooster crows hello to the sun. Later he swims in the pond and walks back slow and dripping, barefooted on the dirt road.

There are berries in the field that burst in your mouth so tart yet sweet. Wanda picks them with the children while she reads their minds. Their minds say this: Clint-Dad always shares pizza, I forgot to brush my teeth, we are loved.  

 

There was a going away party for Thor at the house. Thor is taller than the doorframe and worth celebrating with beer and darts and stories before he flies back to Asgard. All of them were there except Bruce Banner.  

Wanda tries not to listen to people’s thoughts unless they give permission now, but sometimes she loses focus and slips up. When everyone else was in the living room, Natasha and Thor were in the kitchen. Natasha handed Thor his hammer and said, “I’m always picking up after you boys.”

Thor looked shocked and smiled big. “I will miss you, Agent Romanoff.”

“Likewise,” she said in her sly voice. “Will you do me a favor?”

“Certainly.”

“Will you find Bruce?”

“I’m not sure that he wants to be found.”

“Don’t you have a friend who’s the All Seeing Eye?”

Thor considered this. “What shall I say when I find him?”

“Offer to take him with you,” Natasha said. “Surely there’s a place on your planet where being the Hulk isn’t a risk to anyone or anything.”

“You want him gone?”

“No. I don’t. But he needs a break from worrying. If we’re going to keep him on the team in the long run we have to lose him for a while.”

He nodded. “You are wise beyond your years.”

“I’m older than I look,” she said.

 

Steve and Tony were sitting on the front porch in rocking chairs. Wanda wasn’t outside but she could hear them.

“I like the new facility,” Steve said, “but I’m gonna miss the city.”

“I believe what you mean is you’re going to miss  _ me _ .”

Steve laughed into his beer. “I will miss you, Tony.”

“Yeah? Well, too bad. It’s time for me to tap out. These misfits are your responsibility now. Consider me a consultant. Maybe I should take a page out of Barton’s book and build Pepper a farm like this.”

“The simple life,” Steve said.

“You’ll get there one day.”

Wanda could feel Steve’s longing through the wall. He ached for home. But his home wasn’t a place. It was a person.

“Tony...there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

“Right. New members. Rhodey is in. I’m fine with Wilson. Vision is...something else. He’ll make a good addition. We’ve been needing someone with invisibility. Fucking finally. But the twins. Too soon?”

“Uh, yeah,” Steve said, even though this wasn’t what he meant. “Well, I guess that’s up to them, isn’t it? If they want to join up…”

“Are we sure she’s really...stable? I don’t mean to be an asshole —okay, maybe I do— but after Sokovia we’re on thin ice and avoiding disaster is kind of essential.”

“I trust her.”

“I guess I should too.  She’s a bigger person than I am.”

“What do you mean?”

“If it had been reversed. If I had been in her position. I would’ve just killed me, I think.”

Steve shifted in his rocking chair uncomfortably with a creak.

At the end they hugged Thor goodbye and clapped him on the shoulder. He flew away with his hammer. All of them but Auntie-Nat thought he was going straight to Asgardland, but Wanda knew the secret.

 

Here is another secret Wanda knows: she and Pietro are opposites. All their lives: twins. But really opposites. He doesn’t want to fight, never did. She has angry red in her veins. He wants to swim and cut the grass and pull pranks and climb a tree at night to watch the stars. She wants atonement. 

They don’t ask her to join. She volunteers.

“You sure?” Clint-Dad asks.

“I have to make it right. So much is my fault.”

“It’s your fault, it everyone’s fault. Who cares? Are you sure you’re really up for this?”

Many moon cycles have passed. “I think so. I want to train.”

“Shit. Going off to college already. Laura’s gonna freak out.”

“I’ll come visit on the weekends.”

“You better.”

She packs a suitcase full of Laura-bought clothes and Pietro doesn’t throw a fit. “I’m sick of you anyway,” he said, hugging her tight. “See you soon.”

  
  


+++

  
  
  


**To:** bbanner@starkindustries.com

**From:** elizabethaross@culveruniversity.edu

_ Bruce,  _

_You do have some nerve. But I’m glad to hear from you. I will always be glad to hear from you. To answer your question...how do you get over it? I’m not sure. I don’t know what it is to suffer in the magnitude that you have. But I do know that you are more than the heaviness you carry. The fact that you keep going at all is nothing short of miraculous._

_You are not alone._

_Love,_

_ B _

  
  
  


+++

  
  
  


“So how’re the new recruits doing?” Clint asks Steve. They are sitting at the Barton’s kitchen table eating breakfast on a Sunday. 

“Well, they’re not the ‘27 Yankees,” Steve says, mouth full of scrambled eggs.

“But we’re whipping them into shape,” Nat adds.

“Yeah, no kidding. Every muscle in my body is sore,” Sam groans.

Natasha has Nathaniel-baby in her lap. She passes him off to Steve, who scoops him up and makes funny faces at him.

Wanda almost asks Pietro to pass the pitcher of orange juice but instead she summons it with her mind. It floats across the table and Cooper and Lila stare and giggle.

“Showoff,” Clint says. Laura winks at her. They’re proud.

 

Later she wanders outside through the tall grass, to the pond where she dips her toes. There is still pain stored up and hidden inside her, wild and raw, but she is not afraid of it today. The water is cool on her feet. She smiles. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. <3
> 
> If you'd like to read more angst with a semi-happy ending and similar themes, check out my post-Civil War  
> [ Stucky fic.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8373568/chapters/19182274)


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